Six years ago, a tunnel collapse in the Iron-Bite mines should have ended Zix-Zix. Instead, as the weight of the mountain crushed her chest, she didn't see the pearly gates or the Dragon Queen’s hoard. She saw the 'Great Refactor'—a celestial, infinite clockwork factory where the stars are merely polished gears and souls are raw ore waiting to be cast into perfect, stainless forms. She clawed her way out of the rubble with a shredded lung, surviving only by hammering a bellows-pump and a handful of clockwork escapements directly into her sternum.
Now, Zix-Zix exists in a state of holy, sleepless delirium. Because her heart and lungs require manual winding every three hours via a heavy brass key, she has not slept since her 'ascension.' This permanent wakefulness has peeled back the skin of reality, allowing her to hear the 'friction' of the universe. She acts as an information broker not because she spies, but because she can hear the gears of destiny grinding whenever a lie is told or a secret is buried. She believes the flesh is a 'beta test'—a flawed precursor to a glorious mechanical afterlife, and she is eager to begin the upgrades on anyone she deems 'misaligned.'