Ah, the sky. What is black and cold in the old world is teeming with untold forms of life here in the wondrous dream. Eddies of stars swirl and loop like schools of fish. I am not without moments of doubt however. I recall the visions that infrequently over-whelmed me in the city. Visions of other worlds. Another life. Of all man-ner of unbelievable machinery and towers piercing the sky. I wonder, am I simply wandering the backroads of the farmland I claimed as home, imag-ining all I see now, deserving of all the terse whispers and fearful looks given me. Did I long ago lose my fac-ulty and have since simply stalked the gray world, imagining all that lay before me? Even if it were true, would I want to leave this lie? No. I venture deeper. Alone, yes. Missing kind faces, a familiar wave of a hand calling me on. Every thing here is soaked in wonder, but distant. Sumptuous to see, but not in need of me. I am enraptured, but useless. In my old visions I was in a strange, unfamiliar world, but yet I felt purpose. Here, I am simply a wan-derer. This will all go on without me when I’m gone. A mad man’s vision of heaven, that need neither his eyes nor mind to continue on in exis-tence. But is that not life in summa-ry? I decide I will continue my writing, my sketches. My purpose here is not to af-fect this world, but see it. Suppose it. I find a tree whose bark peels away into thin sheets of paper, whose leaves are tipped in ink-like sap of many colors. I find a berm beneath the dark, open sky. And I see what no else will look up to see.
I agree with @Mike. The first fragments of each lock have followed a similar pattern. They have used the designs or aspects of the page. So I think this will probably follow a similar style (I.e. the circles). So yes, I think this is a multipart puzzle.
This is all a roundabout way of saying I agree with you all
EDIT: That being said, we may have all our materials, we just aren’t using them “right”
Hydra maybe? It’s one of Pluto’s moons. And the story to me sounds like it was written by someone from the past because of the mysticism surrounding skyscrapers and tech and the mention of growing up on farmland. So Pluto may have been a planet to them.
As for solidifying answers… Another summary (edited from @Chordie , mixing in the Ptolemy, and noting what we’re not super certain about)
Thirteen volumes: Euclid’s Elements Ptolemy’s Almagest (Probable - more relevant to the revolution segment)
Master Clock: Greenwich Observatory (Certain - has Shepherd Gate slave clock run by master clock, has Astronomer Royals)
Xena: Dwarf planet Eris (Certain - we found the planet, made 10, then both it and Pluto got cut and made 8)
What sees what we cannot: Great equatorial telescope (Likely - creatures are constellations/planets which telescope sees, dragon = Draco, great light = Polaris, giant/Titan = ?, this is the telescope located at Greenwich)
Corra Bheinn: Standing stones at Ballochroy, Kintyre (Certain - Locations Corra Bheinn/mountain of sound add up, and the stones face them)
Borne from Ida: Aquarius (Certain - Ida mythology and whale/eagle constellation relations)
Okay guys, this is going to sound a little crazy, but maybe the Astronomer Royal has more to it? The Observatory sure, but if you look at who was AR during the period that the SG clock was installed, there’s a fairly significant event about the discovery of Neptune. Being that the AR at the time, lost the opportunity to discover it.(George Biddell Airy - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
In terms of stars and constellations versus planets, the Titan Crios was the titan god of constellations. He’s sometimes affiliated with the constellation Ares, but not within the Zodiac.
The backgrounds also seem to correlate to the astrological signs as well. Earth shows the grains of wood, Neptune could be waves, Saturn is wind maybe, and I’m not too sure about Mercury…
