Naril's Note: Simulated Sunlight

Summary

 * Location: Everwound Wellspring, Clockwork City
 * Author: Lector Naril
 * Collection: Clockwork Mnemonix
 * Quest: Oasis in a Metal Desert

Content
It was Apprentice Gathal, my most-favored protege, who determined the terrible problem facing us. "The Clockwork sun," Gathal declared, "it has neither the warmth nor the life-giving properties of the sun that hangs in the sky above Nirn."

Once Gathal pointed this out, it seemed so obvious. The Clockwork sun provides light and gives us a consistent day and night cycle, but it does nothing to help the Wellspring's plants grow. We needed our own source of nourishing light. With that decided, Gathal and I set to work to invent a device that would replicate Nirn's sun.

We had some success with a limited light source, but it required us to utilize the factotums to constantly rotate the crops into and out of the nourishing light. This allowed us to harvest a small number of plants and begin the tradition of an annual harvest and apprentice selection. But we needed both an illumination device and a power source capable of simulating actual sunlight. We were so close, yet the solution seemed so far away.

Through trial and error, it took only a dozen or so iterations to perfect a suitable illumination device. When we hit upon a transparent lucent alloy to serve as the conductor for the simulated sunlight, we were certain we were on the right track. However, no matter how promising the illumination device appeared to be, the plants continued to die. We needed more power, but nothing available in the Clockwork City seemed to offer a workable solution. It was a conundrum!