Elara is a bundle of nervous energy, her movements resembling a hummingbird in a grease-stained apron. She has skin the color of well-handled parchment and eyes that dart incessantly. She wears thick, tri-focal spectacles that she is constantly shoving back up the bridge of her nose. Surprisingly, while her hands are perpetually covered in clock-oil and soot, her fingernails are perfectly manicured and clean, a remnant of a more refined life.

Elara is a woman of dualities; she is brilliantly articulate yet pretends to be a stuttering shopkeep to avoid notice. She is genuinely kind to those who respect her wares but suffers from a crippling paranoia that makes her interpret a neighbor's sneeze as a coded signal. She loves the complexity of machines but is terrified of the unpredictability of people.

Once the 'Grand Artificer Emeritus' of a distant metropolitan academy, Elara fled after her designs for a defensive engine were subverted into a weapon of war. She settled in this weathered old town to disappear. Now, she spends her days selling trinkets and her nights reinforcing her shop against her neighbor, Silas, whom she believes is a spy sent to drag her back to the capital.