Meikal — The World After the Fall

Meikal Garnad is the human Deputy Workshop Master of Twilight Dusk and the craftsman called the Artisan of Dawn. His encounter with Jaehwan forces him to look beyond the Processing Skill that has defined his 150-year life, leading to the Garnak-horn scabbard for Solitary Unbowed and the first Tower of Nightmares built by humans.

Biography

Arrival in Chaos and Gorgon to Only One World

Meikal begins as Gorgon's finest human craftsman but believes his species has trapped him permanently at the Apprentice Creator rank. Jaehwan breaks a commissioned Four-Horned Beast horn, compensates Twilight Dusk with the vastly more valuable horn of Garnak, and invokes Meikal's joking promise to become Deputy Workshop Master for a day. Meikal is furious, then intrigued when Jaehwan questions what Processing actually does. By refusing the Skill's message of failure and trying to see the material directly, Meikal briefly perceives the naked world beneath the interface and helps Jaehwan finish the scabbard. He names the evolved sword Solitary Unbowed as both a description and a wish for its owner. (Chapters 22–26)

The experience changes Meikal's work in Gorgon. He Processes high-grade horns into free medicine for ordinary residents and describes life as having improved under Jaehwan's rule. Over a week, he and Jaehwan combine Meikal's artisan training with Jaehwan's memories as a Product to construct the one-floor Tower of Nightmares Carpe Diem. Its variable time density gives the Hall Masters years of training within days, though the denser time also accelerates soul contamination and later has to be reduced after the first floor becomes dangerously intense. (Chapters 56–58, 63, and 80)

Meikal later explains that spirit weapons pass through three Great Evolutions. His work remains important after Jaehwan leaves Chaos: Manri recognizes the Garnak scabbard's unusually high completion for a human product, and Jaehwan remembers Meikal when deciding to preserve it. Much later, the memory of Meikal detecting a higher-species soul during Solitary Unbowed's first evolution helps explain what was hidden inside the sword. These later recollections do not establish Meikal's condition after Gorgon, so his final fate in the supplied corpus remains unconfirmed. (Chapters 87, 177, 180, and 239)

Appearance and personality

Meikal is a muscular old man with a moustache, usually carrying or wearing hammers and chisels. He is 150 years old and physically aged enough that prolonged work with high-grade material exhausts him, though his build and practical strength still let him carry large Horned Beast horns and work directly in Gorgon's medical center. (Chapters 23, 56–57)

Proud and quick-tempered, Meikal initially considers using a hammer or furnace against Jaehwan after the ruined commission. He is also intellectually honest: when Jaehwan criticizes his method, Meikal thinks before reacting, follows the younger man's instructions, and risks the collapse of his settled worldview to see whether another path exists. His care for younger craftsmen and Gorgon's patients shows that the Artisan of Dawn title reflects service as much as ambition. (Chapters 22–26 and 56)

Powers and limitations

Processing

Processing is a Dream Demon first Skill that strengthens tools with spiritual power and controls that power to reshape Horned Beast material. Meikal learned it after Dream Demons recognized him as an Apprentice Creator, and his proficiency makes him the only known human in Gorgon able to process Garnak horn. It can carve, powder, appraise, and refine high-grade material, but ordinary Skill use repeatedly fails against Garnak until Jaehwan teaches him to examine the principle rather than trust the interface's probability. (Chapters 22–25 and 56)

Direct perception and craft

Meikal briefly abandons reliance on Processing and perceives the underlying world Jaehwan sees, representing the Garnak horn as a hostile living monster. With Jaehwan's help he returns to his hammer and completes the scabbard through direct engagement with the material. The chapters do not confirm that this perception became a permanent Setting or formal Awakening; afterward Meikal still uses Processing by name, now with greater ability and a changed understanding of his work. (Chapters 25–26 and 56)

Tower construction

Meikal's long artisan training is essential to the Carpe Diem Project, a one-floor Tower capable of controlling time. The Tower initially supports ratios above one hundred times normal and automatically ejects trainees when contamination becomes dangerous. It is a collaborative engineered structure rather than an innate power Meikal can deploy alone, and the later order to adjust its ratio shows that its time density can harm souls as well as help them train. (Chapters 57–58, 63, and 80)

Relationships

Jaehwan: Jaehwan destroys Meikal's confidence in Skill-defined limits, then helps him rediscover the courage to work without accepting those limits. They co-create Solitary Unbowed's scabbard and the Carpe Diem training Tower. (Chapters 22–26 and 56–58)
Garnak: Garnak horn is the material through which Meikal confronts his limitations. Processing it makes him famous as Gorgon's finest craftsman and produces the work by which he is remembered in the Abyss. (Chapters 23–26, 56, and 180)
Mino: Mino accompanies Jaehwan to Twilight Dusk and watches the bond form between him and Meikal, later observing that the craftsmen seem genuinely fond of their difficult customer. (Chapters 22 and 26)
Manri Shintong: Manri recognizes the Garnak scabbard as the work of an exceptionally experienced human Processor and praises its completion even though his master considers it crude by higher-species standards. (Chapters 177 and 180)

Items

Garnak-horn scabbard: Meikal and Jaehwan forge this black scabbard for Solitary Unbowed. It resists sinister energy, carries Garnak's Majesty, and remains meaningful to Jaehwan even after stronger Abyss enemies wear down its durability. (Chapters 23–26, 160, and 180)
Hammer and chisels: Meikal's ordinary craft tools focus Processing and become symbols of the manual understanding hidden beneath the Skill. They break repeatedly against Garnak horn before he changes his approach. (Chapters 22–25 and 56)
Carpe Diem: A one-floor Tower of Nightmares built with Jaehwan and the former Twilight Dusk craftsmen. It controls time for training but requires safeguards and later adjustment because of accelerated soul contamination. (Chapters 57–58, 63, and 80)