Randall

Randall is an old man first met in Ruan.

He's an inhabitant of the town of Zeiss where he's living in a house in the northern part of the city block together with his son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter, though when Estelle and Joshua first run into him, he's on vacation in Ruan together with his son Rutherford and granddaughter Muriel, having hired a tour guide to show them the sights around town. Throughout the chapter, he and his family can be seen taking in the various sights, like the park with the lighthouse, the Langland Bridge and the church with the stained glass windows illuminated by the Ruanian sunset or relaxing on the terrace behind the Lavantar.

The vacation is not exactly uneventful either. At one point, he accidentally drops his dentures into the water and the three of them have to hire Melvin, a bracer, in order to retrieve them, a very embarrassing experience for him. The three of them also nearly took an involuntary bath in the Roubine river themselves as they were standing on the Langland Bridge when Mayor Dalmore, in his attempt to escape from Estelle, Joshua and Kloe, opened the bridge in preparation to escape with his yacht. Fortunately, the three of them weren't standing exactly in the middle and could get away before the bridge was raised completely. Randall and his family make it back to Zeiss just before Estelle and Joshua do and life returns to normal for them with Muriel returning to Sunday School, Rutherford getting back to his job and Randall going back to spending most of the day at the Forgel Bar in Zeiss. While he admitted he enjoyed the trip to Ruan, he's also happy to be back home.

Randall is quite a bit more than a regular at the Forgel Bar. He's more like part of the furniture. He's at the bar so often that he usually ends up helping Ben, the owner, whenever Ursus, the bar's cook and waiter, isn't around. While Randall seems to be good friends with Ben, though he isn't afraid to tell brand-new customers to their faces that Ben never ever changes his menu and dismissing Ben's annoyed reaction with a "I'm just telling it like it is".

Randall is a former clockmaker who was already around when Zeiss was still a clockmakers' town. He worked with Russell when the latter joined forces with the Clockmakers' Union to promote orbal technology, leading up to the Orbal Revolution. Randall's days of working on clocks or orbments are over nowadays as his vision deteriorated to the point where he isn't able to do stuff that requires precision anymore (his former colleague Cosimo passes him up and asks Igor instead when the town's orbal clock needs resetting), but he nevertheless still knows many people inside the Factory, both from his working days and because a lot of employees have their lunch at the Forgel Bar every day. Because of his connections, his daughter-in-law eventually asks him to have a talk with his granddaughter who wants him to do some networking at the factory so she can get a position as receptionist there. Randall isn't sure whether he'll be able to pull that off though, as pretty much everyone he knows there is part of the engineering department, rather than the management.

Relations
Randall is the father of Rutherford, the father-in-law of Sotiria and the grandfather of Muriel

He's also a friend of Ben, whom he usually helps out whenever things get too busy at the bar