Ok. First analysis. This is a DaoT ruin of clockwork-vibe robots, who were originally directed by "yearning minds, questing minds, minds that were no more." I'm not sure exactly what their intended purpose is, but they were definitely supposed to be fun servants to people. This is based on the word Hineni, which is hebrew for "Here I am" and means a willingness to serve and be available.
But, I think they diverted from that during the Age of Strife and made the clockwork world, killing everybody and everything, and have kind of just... been there since.
In the section where they're declaring "Here I am" it's all about them declaring their willingness to serve while everything falls apart during the Age of Strife. I do think they got a bit corrupted by whatever happened to all of the AIs but kept declaring their willingness to serve while perverting it. Or they were directed to take records and messed it up.
"Here I Am," did they declare upon the darkened skies that broke the earth and shaped the world.
The calamity comes. The world is broken. Maybe it's them, maybe it's something else.
"Here I Am," did they declare with fright reflected in the eyes of people born before, known before, upon their world untouched by Clockwork Artifice before.
The Clockwork men become aggressive, the people are scared of them.
"Here I Am," did they declare upon the works they started, flesh and blood remade and shaped upon their wheels that wound and springs that ground.
They kill people and remake their flesh and blood into the clockwork world. Maybe into more clockwork people.
"Here I Am," did they declare...standing alone, upon these vast and empty worldly dunes, whose visages were marred by skeletons of iron cast and poured stone.
They killed everybody, there's nothing left, just the skeletons of iron and poured stone cast upon this world they've taken into the Clockwork.
"Here I Am," did they declare, not knowing where they were at all. All who wore witness carved into Clockwork Homes and Frozen Time.
They don't have a purpose anymore, just a world of clockwork, and everybody who shows up gets captured and imprisoned in the Clockwork, either as more clockwork people or inside the World in some way.
"Here I Am," did they whisper wordlessly, midnight oil burning fast, hateful ice grasping hearts, indifferent night shrouding tasks, labr'ing fast in darkened halls, ignoring a Goddess' terrible calls.
Not sue who the goddess is, maybe it's Slaanesh, or Ynnead or Isha. But they don't care, they're just cold robots. Maybe some (all?) of the people were Eldar, and becoming cold clockwork is a way to escape their fate.
"Here I Am," did the Clockwork Men say, a ritual of ages past from Man they did not know, with words of people undefiled once before, before there was a ticking, tocking, ticking within these then-unwrought halls.
The clockwork men don't know why they say Here I am anymore, all of that is lost and defiled in their new homes.
"Here I Am," did they chant, wrought from steam and tree and labor dark, these Clockwork Men, born by Man's Hand and Peoples' Heart, these bastard children wrought from vigor and timber hard a destiny stopped forever barred by destiny whose mind was filled with cruel disregard.
The clockwork men are bastards, born from DaoT labor and people's hearts.
"Here I Am," did these Clockwork Men say, a prayer hopeless and devoid of love and heat, unknowing their blasphemy by life's and flesh's darkened start.
They're blasphemous, but they don't know that. They're made of people and aren't people anymore, but they don't care.
"Here I Am," did they whisper, with hands that creak and hearts that speak withering upon a barren world, "here I am," did they whisper, hoarse and scratchy springs and gears, ticking, tocking, ticking away the timeless night under endless stars.
They're not doing anything anymore, just sitting and waiting under the stars for the last ten thousand years.
"Here I Am," said the Clockwork Man, standing last and whole, staring into blackless skies and voiceless nights, standing here, wounding tight, holding vigil without fright, knowing neither love nor hate, upon this ticking, tocking, ticking world of silence past.
The original clockwork man, or maybe the rest have fallen into decay, standing functional as all of the others have fallen. And it doesn't care that it too will soon fail, because that's what it is.
Ok. After all that, my hypothesis is that the clockwork people were basically fun mechanical servants that got messed with and rebelled against people, killing them and turning them into more clockwork men. They built their planet to be all clockwork but it's been so long that everything is broken and messed up, and we need to choose what to scavenge from it.
So, what do the rewards actually mean?
[] Clockwork Bones (Gain: Crafts of Old, broken and disused. Grander than all your artifice.)
DaoT servant robots basically. Probably just technological boosts to automata.
[] Clockwork Hearts (Gain: Frozen Children wrought by wire and tin, breathed new life from frozen graves.)
The hearts of the clockwork people? Maybe they tried making new people and mostly failed? I think this is a failed attempt for the clockwork people to reproduce or maybe is all that's left after you turn a person into clockwork. Probably represents better automata cognition.
[] Clockwork Pasts (Gain: A People suspended in time by Clockwork Hands and Clockwork Minds.)
Probably history. Maybe a library of everything they gathered, or records of everybody they harvested?
