CogTickMarrow

A motor hums on an iron wall. Two clock hands sit dead still above it. Between them, a handful of empty pegs. You have a toolbox of brass gears and a gauge of steam that drops with every placement. The rules fit on a workbench note. Gears that mesh turn opposite ways. A big gear driven by a small one turns slower, a small one driven by a big one spins faster, exactly by the ratio of their teeth. So each hand wants something specific, say clockwise at 45 RPM, and you work backwards from it: which size goes here, which way will it turn the next one, does it even reach. Teeth line up for real. When the last gear drops in, the whole train starts ticking at once, and the hands either sweep the right way or they don't. The wall gets fussier as you go: - Copper belts join two pegs and keep the direction instead of flipping it. - Bolted gears are already fixed. You build around them. - Cracked…