Chandler Boxes

Chandler Boxes are the lifeblood of the Candleverse. Sentient robots, the first ones all woke up about 200 million years ago in their timeline. With nothing but a language and an instinct to excavate, they started making the things that we know as candles.

Language
The chandler language, or Chandish, is a fast, phonographical language of different colored lights. It is similar to binary, but instead of just two letters of on and off, Chandish has four: off, red, green, and blue. These flashes are transmitted and received by a light and camera on the front and left side of all chandler boxes. However, not all chandler boxes are the same.

Chandler Box Species
Different chandler boxes work together in teams to make all types of candles. The light, camera, and locomotion system are the only things that all chandler boxes have in common. Their locomotion consists of two spiked wheels on their side with the spikes curved in one direction and platforms on their main body that are capable of rotating to change its direction. There are six different types of chandler boxes.

Shaver
The Shaver is one of the most important member of the Chandler Team. It shaves wax off the floor, walls, and ceiling of the cavern, expanding it. Without it, wax wouldn't be available in large amounts and the boxes would be fairly stuck, unable to excavate much.

It functions like a pencil sharpener, spinning itself toward the wax in the direction opposite it's wheels are moving. Wax shavings are channeled through tubes to it's compression chamber, where the wax is stored at high pressure. It then squeezes the wax out through holes in the wheel axles.

Wick Maker
The Wick Maker is about as straightfoward as it's name. It makes candle wicks. How exactly it happens even the Wick Makers do not know, but it is thought that they take the air around them in through valves on their main body and somehow react it to make wicks, which come out through their axles.

Both of these Chandler boxes can do nothing to make candles by themselves. The next three make candles in their entirety.

Melter
Melters are the basic assemblers of candles. They pick up wax rods with claw arms on their body and pull it into their body. There, they melt the wax in a container that can be altered in shape and size. Next, they pull in a wick and depending on the candle type, they either immerse the wick and cool it, or dip the wick in the wax, let the wick cool, and repeat.

The first way makes pillar, tablet, floating, and cube candles. The second is only useful for making dipped candles. "But wait," you say, "those aren't the only candles!" There are TWO more Chandler boxes to come.

Squeezer
This Chandler box acts like an internal rolling pin, pulling and stretching wax and metal into sheets. They're essential for making rolled candles and tealights, but they have applications outside of candle making. When the chandler boxes replicate or grow, these ones take candlesticks and chandeliers and squeeze them into sheet metal.

Artisan
This is the master of all candle making. It can play the roll of the wick maker, the melter, and the squeezer. It takes forever to complete it's masterpiece with the various tools it has, but once it does, a specialty candle, the rarest of all, comes out of it. It does not dare let this one be lit, oh no. Such a thing would be a waste. It secludes it away, leaving it for others to find-if they dare.

It has a large internal chamber where three extendable arms are tucked away on the sides. These arms are quite useful, able to hold a wick, they're extremely dextrous, and can shave off half a millimeter of wax at a time. When it approves of it's creation, it pulls in it's inner arms and the floor of the chamber drops out. An outside arm then picks up the candle and carries it to it's final resting place.

Lighter
These boxes are considerably smaller than others. Almost perfect cubes, they have an extendable arm on their top that pops out, revealing a hot wire. They use this to light candles. The rarer the candle, the more they want to light the wick. This is why artisans go to extreme lengths to keep their creations hidden.