The original Arcus body was once a mage-tech "radiation suit" designed to investigate calamity events while protecting the wearer from stray sparks, parasites, and spell fragments, which have been known to cause strange growths or personality changes. A standard-issue one is a living veneer of fiber that can mold to the wearer and take the brunt of both impersonal threats, and threats that only affect the living. The suit that became Arcus was long expired from disuse, grown thick and woody and no longer flexible or even wearable. The Salamancers installed the bronze structure banding and soft/latticed joint padding to restore flexibility, and modified ports and systems from there.
The jaw particularly is an after-market add on, and functions as a formal hatch for important Salamancers, small-scale visitors, and also external food input by way of a hatch (also good for surprising internal Friends who then become Food) leading to Nutrition processing. It was made from the outside panels of a stolen bedside radio, whose internal components were fitted for the LWW system. There are still speakers that can connect to Screech type lizards on the bridge or LWW broadcasting.
Due to being primarily made of wood and fluid tanks, with only nominal structural metal and Sealant, Arcus floats on most liquids. In order to sink, which is considered an emergency protocol, exterior liquid can be allowed into supply storage. As further measures, lighter fluids can be expelled from storage tanks, shortening the capacity for being away from dry land, but also providing a locomotive force while submerged. Arcus is not coordinated or dynamic enough to swim under their own power, and will have to be pushed or towed while floating, or else sacrifice fluid pressure strategically as a locomotive force.
Arcus can walk, but cannot fly. No thrusters, only pressure vents. However, both grabber and locomotion limbs have six-packs of Sticky Pads on the bottom/flat side that use a combination of flex suction and a modified toe mucus to be able to, using all four limbs, climb walls, and to some degree ceilings. Hey, it was designed by salamanders, after all - clearly sticky feet and vertical motion are mission critical. Jumping and landing is possible, but energy-heavy, and Arcus will choose to climb walls instead wherever possible.
Arcus is not fully silent, but has a low-level hum of bubbles, LWW tracks, magical buzzing, pump chugging, and friction/suction noises from internally mobile Salamancers. To become closer to silent, Arcus can manually shut down the pumps and LWW broadcast, and curb Salamancer motion, usually hand in hand with dimming most of the glowing (which does make the magical signature higher). The pumps can only be shut off for a matter of minutes before mutiny or casualties begin.
Most of the Arcus systems are hydraulic or fluid transmission. They are also piped through the body using high tensile flexible translucent tubing, piped in generous loops over moving parts to allow for reasonable motion ranges with significantly less chance of pinching or stretching, and with emergency seal hatches at most internal/external transition points.
The exceptions include the Salamancer Pressurized Interlimb Tubing (SPIT). SPIT is technically breathable air and necessary aquaphor vapor, but still a pressurized and contained system. It also tends to grow a beneficial neon-green phosphor algae, which is good for micronutrients absorbed through the skin, and traction.
The other exception is the Lizard Wizard Wireless. This is a fully artificial system designed to assist with rhythmic coordination of the Limb Teams, and is made of a magically canned and transmitted echo, re-created by Essence powered speakers at strategic locations. This plays in real time (only micro-second levels of transmission delay) in all or most workstations and leisure quarters. It can be externally accessed by scanning for FM radio waves, WiFi, other varied wireless communication tech or magery, and telepathic signals, being the closest thing to a coordinated brain wave. It can also be piped to the external speakers, with optional use of the New Listener track. Having a new listener connected plays the phrase "Thank you for tuning into Lizard Wizard Wireless. Please enjoy the sounds of togetherness," followed by a track from a specific archive disc that, at default, contains primarily moving-water noises of various tempos and intensities. The welcome message, when activated, is played in real time on all speakers, alerting the Salamancers that something is listening. Operating without LWW (or with it interrupted or overwritten) may cause Arcus to stumble or move slower and more drunkenly, due to the pressure-delay, linguistic variance, and increased traffic on the pheromone comms.
Pheremone Comms themselves are a hydraulic pressurized bubble tube network, controlled by a Comms Officer and team as operators, controlled by touch based terminals primarily interacted with by Salamancer tails. The bubbles travel quickly, but still at perceptible speed.
Motion hydraulics are more rod-based than most of the tubing, travelling directly along the limbs and controlling the joints through double-piston rotation, plus keeping pressure power to operate tool hatches. These are also individually pumped to each Limb on separate fluid systems, preventing full paralysis in case of breech, and allowing for efficient system pressure to operate tool hatches.
The Nutritional Offerings and Pressurized Extraction (NOPE) system is a multi-use cyclical network primarily intended for active Limb Teams, hatchlings, and extending the useful life of Food. Bridge Crew and internal workers typically free-feed and use permanent Extraction channels as needed; External teams are kitted out but on their own. The NOPE pumps, in 20-minute intervals, distribute nutritional fluid, extract waste products, and run a cleaning cycle. Collected extraction products are filtered and compacted, expelling the solids in an orbular bale out a rear hatch, re-absorbing trace amounts of Essence, and routing waste liquid into motion hydraulics or expelled through rear-mounted tubing.
The Optics system is a technology invented particularly by Salamancers and known as DewDr0ptics or dDr0px. dDr0px is essentially a camera/eyeball system that relies on ambient visual light, which is caught by a series of externally-mounted glass marbles, refracted through a non pressurized (but contained, airless, and refillable) tube network of refractive fluid, to be re-displayed on internal lens marbles (which usually have a nic in the back on the refractive tube, to be able to adjust which external marble is on view). It does not work well in dim light, and does not work at all in the dark. Losing a tube can make a Limb blind, but each Limb is a separate dDr0px network with an extended connection cable to the bridge. They do not record; anything that goes to archives is manually transmitted.
The Essence Pulse is the life blood of Arcus. It is the power, energy, and magical force behind the pumps, lights, hatch tool capabilities, and most if not all essential systems. It is refined from living tissue from the Disperser, where Food is subjected to be taken apart. (It is a slow and painful process to disperse Food, and works best when the Food is alive, or at worst only very recently dead). Using standard ritual cull of unwanted Salamancers and pod-farmed Spark Crawlers, Arcus can sustain enough Essence and Nutrition to keep (most of) the crew alive indefinitely, but can only self-power motion for a day without impact, or 2-3 days with known sacrifices, resulting in mutiny and aborted mission, or significant casualties. Living Food is therefore part of the sought Imports, and Arcus will seek out and consume both plants and animals who do not fit the Friend category, preferring ones small enough to fit down the access hatch, but willing to settle for things that can be restrained and disassembled for a while before dying. Most craved, but most difficult to get, would be inanimate items with an innate amount of magic or energy, such as batteries, scrolls, or enchanted trinkets. Essence is a liquid, is a pressurized system, and can be stored in tanks as backup energy. Pure Essence in a non-pressurized environment vaporizes, and can be further refined as magical repair or weaponry if applied closely and densely.