From the moment he had used his powers to create something humanoid and, in his opinion, cute, Chester had found himself also wishing the things he made were alive. Not alive alive, with a brain and hopes and dreams, just functionally automated in some way, possessing the same capacity for repetitive motion that the toys they resembled might have. He had succeeded in a fairly traditional way on his own, creating bite-sized automatons that walked and bounced and waved their arms through traditional springs and pulleys, but he longed for his magic's assistance. It wasn't that he wasn't pleased with what he had done, he simply wanted more.

He decided to try stimulating his powers by stretching the limits of what they could do, rather than waiting on whatever supernatural force deemed him ready to level up. He started taking an extraordinary number of books out of the mundane library on robotics and clockwork, and over time he got good enough at small repair that he could do it to items that didn't even activate his magic. It was only after this skill had been honed so effectively that he realized gaining it was kind of the opposite of the point.

Chester ventured back into the world of tiny people after that, filling the tops of his dressers with diminutive figures crafted from pens and phones, lamps, mechanical toothbrushes, electronic kiddie banks, novelty Halloween ghosts, pencil sharpeners, water guns, and nearly everything else. He began bringing some of his in-progress works to the otherworld for further modification, crafting simple gears and metal bits to enhance them. They grew more interesting to look at too, less a hodgepodge of old toys and more unique oddities to be admired on their own merit.

It was around this time that he considered selling the things he had made, pieces like the music boxes in particular. They would garner interest, he was sure, and he could use the extra money, but no matter how much he tried to divorce himself from his work, they felt a bit too personal to just give to anyone. It became another goal: discovering the sorts of things he'd be willing to part with. Thankfully, over time, his smaller creations began to feel less dear. He set out to price them, posting a few on Etsy under PooleIndustries, even though he felt like an idiot doing so. It was only after some random magic chaser tried to friend his personal account on Facebook that he truly regretted his choice, deleting the account and the website he was in the middle of in one sweeping attempt at making himself anonymous again.

He never did stop creating, not even after his odd brush with stalkerdom. When his room grew too crowded, Chester dismantled old projects, at first reluctantly, then without much thought, driven to make newer things that better showcased his developing skill set.

Eventually everything was scrap, nothing was good enough, and through his indifference Chester realized he had crossed some sort of magical threshold. But at what cost?

Through it all, Hickory remained. Most of the time he was okay with that.