Cagliostro is sitting on the rock, watching the bare planet next door.

The first experience of the Realms Historian - as the first thing, he
had to fight for his life - matches his memories of the person he
helped.  Can't tell how he was attacked, or by who, but can tell he
was attacked.

Darkstar turns to Cagliostro and indicates the destroyed area - 'the
value of destruction'.  They discuss things - Darkstar indicates that
one of his acquaintances left a place like that out of pique.

An individual asks Cagliostro's help in resolving a problem along a
political axis - someone is trying to activate a device for petty
reasons, and it would upset him tremendously.  He doesn't want to take
official notice to avoid giving the actions weight - Cagliostro is out
of the political loop, can he take care of it?  Cagliostro agrees,
modulo his promise to Darkstar, and is offered access to the
individual's magic library.

"Who was that?"  "The biggest mage of the different magical realms -
by definition.  By office - not just by power."  Darkstar declines the
offer to join, because he has a tendency to accidentally set off
mechanical devices.

Two individuals arguing next to the device - one throws Cagliostro
across the place a couple of times. Darkstar pulls Cagliostro back via
the card and namedrops Princess Chandra's name at the jerk.  The jerk
apologizes profusely, Cagliostro accepts his departure as an apology
and fails to restore his bow.

Purpose - collect souls into the device so that they can be restored.

Only one other technie involved in the project - who doesn't want it
destroyed, because it's his machine.

Created the Great Machine that the Great Ilkandacian - farmer, grabbed
again, made him create a machine that was similar but different, he's
afraid that Ilkandacian will kill him out of hand for failure.  If he
makes the wrong choice, Ilkandacian will kill him (and his family!)
out of spite - he's seen it happen!  (Of course, they tried to kill
and enslave everything in sight when they were following their
religion?)

Cagliostro intervenes with Ilk - Ilk is satisfied, is quite firm that
the builder should refrain from building, did a poor job informing and
reassuring the builder.  Cagliostro plays therapist for a while, and
manages to engage his mechanical brain.

Huge chunks of the machine are either purposeless or entirely
tangential, but were put in because he expected them to be there.
Caglistro's basis in engineering and physics is taking a hell of a
shellacking, but alchemy (the mother of science) is carrying him
through.  Going back to first principles often helps.

We work through the components until we get to a bit that tweaks
Geryon - apparently this is the bit connected to his soul.
Experimentation happens, the Serpent's Apprentice is called in - don't
touch those bits, work around them.

Working around happens - it's difficult, but gets easier.  Get to
another component which was never triggered - injection process seems
to be unnecessarily cruel, both to the souls and the receipients.
Work around that, too.

Several hours, and several Darkstar-catered food breaks later, we're
down to the soul components and the injector.  Cagliostro reports
progress to the eyeball.  Discussion happens about what to do next.
Cagliostro suggests building new machines to inject the bits - this
breaks the tech, who goes for a liedown.

Cagliostro builds a machine to inject the parts of the soul that are
in the machine, one chunk at a time.  He tests the machine on Geryon -
success!  Ilk sends the other watchers elsewhere for the privacy of
the other individuals, and Cagliostro injects soul bits into a series
of mostly amorphous individuals and the mage.  Dismantling the
components is easy once the souls are gone, and the injector is the
last bit to go.