The Tune in the Clay

You have arrived at Oswin Dratch's claymation workshop — a single low room packed with half-finished figures, tiny clockwork innards, and the faint smell of beeswax. Oswin himself is nowhere to be seen, but his latest automaton, a small clay bird on the workbench, has been chirping the same six-note phrase all morning and will not stop. His neighbor Bettl says the bird was supposed to play a lullaby for the village children's winter festival tonight, but instead it keeps repeating what sounds like a distress signal. You are not sure it is a coincidence that Oswin has gone missing.