The long, thin shadow stretched across the cracked earth, giving that cursed ground the first shade it had experienced in over 2 months. I am no judge, but it was a curious shadow, which led back to the distinctly feminine form of a woman. It was, to the expert opinions of the day, to much. Her ears were too big, she had too many freckles and her body resembled something closer to a coat rack. The loose skirt and baggy white shirt did nothing to help with this illusion. She tilted the wide brim of her hat down against the glare of the rippling orange ball of fire which was dipping behind the barren hills behind her.
She dug the toe of her boot into the earth, the red dirt staining the soft leather. She watched her shadow grow longer until it merged into the other shadows which spread from her small encampment of canvas tents and canopies. It is said among proper society that if a young woman lacks beauty, she can make up for it in pleasant social interaction. Or have a lot of money. The young girl had the latter. Everyone else kept telling her she would gain the other two, eventually. Her father had spent a fortune giving her the best education abroad. And she was only 18 years old. She had been given a name, title, fortune and knowledge. But against the backdrop of that falling sun, Mashell Faraday would have traded it all for someone to talk to her.
A young man approached, dressed in a turban and white cotton shirt and pants. His blue sash identified him as a servant. He bowed and clasped his hands together. "Miss, your tea is ready."
Mashell made a sign with her hand which meant she understood. He bowed, glanced nervously about and retreated back to the main tent. Everyone would be there; two servants employed for this venture, a guide, a squad of soldiers and her governess, Mistress Bleak. Mashell called her the warden. She was the starchiest, well-bred women Mashell had ever met. She bored her almost to tears.
"There you are, Miss Faraday," she said with perfect diction and poise, each word measured, and vowel exacted with such perfection it would have made Mashell's language tutor cry. She reached for the pot of tea as if on cue, poured out a cup for her and her pupil and then set it back on the tray. Every word and action were like bad theater. Everything was over emphasized.
Mashell took her cup, signed a polite thank you and sipped her tea. The aroma of cinnamon, black tea leaves and some vague sweetness which lingered on her tongue filled her senses. She imagined herself as the Great Empress in a foreign land, conducting some kind of peace treaty with barbarians in the Southern Sands. A hollow cough interrupted her thoughts. She straightened her back, set her cup down and tried to look ladylike. She watched her governess for a moment. The woman was a grey headed sack of wrinkles. She was so tightly cinched up in her corset Mashell was certain the woman would unravel the moment the lace broke. The only part that seemed sharp was her dark eyes which perched behind her thin nose like ravens. She wore a high collar and seemed incapable of doing anything that was fun.
"It looks as though we shall have rain tomorrow," her governess said placidly. Yes Mashell agreed.
It did look like rain.
The conversation of course turned towards Yuko's personal goals. She was informed of Lindion's connection to the various inner roads that led to the palace. Yuko made her desires casually known of seeing the royal library and meeting Lindion's grandmother. Lindion, fully aware of the casual guise, of course suggested that she could be of service in guiding Yuko around the city, though she warned that her grandmother was not always the most accessible. As the servant arrived, informing her that the weather was taking a turn for the worst, Lindion bid her farewell and mounted her carriage as the full fury of the storm burst forth.
The rain. It burned like acid.
Mashell pulled her coat around her and watched as the yellow tinged rain pattered outside the tent. Its a strange sound when water struck the aetherweave fabric. Like a orchestra randomly tapping symbols. It was beautiful in its own chaotic way. She knew something of the aether. She had quizzed her tutors, read every book on the subject and even convinced her father that a mage from the Consortium of Hermetic Guilds should be employed to instruct her in the art of utilizing the Quintessence. She had an affinity for magic. She had mastered a few small tricks and was eager to learn how to power a proper clockwork devices.
Her governess was perched atop a pile of pillows reading a book. It was probably something to "expand her mind and grow her knowledge." Not a book filled with "nonsense and frivolity." Mashell would have enjoyed some frivolity right about now. The trip into the borders of the Tortured Lands had taken every charm and wit Mashell possessed to get her overseers to let her venture outside the tent, much less the camp. Her father had footed the bill and said very little about it. It's purpose was educational of course. But in reality she wanted to hunt mythical animals, perform natural studies of the world and observe clockwork machines. It was for her pleasure. She drug everyone else along because that was the only way she could do it. She would have gladly sacked everyone, packed a suitcase and her rifle, and lived as a gypsy for the rest of her life. But she had a duty and responsibility. Mashell was often reminded of her priviledge. Responsibility be damned. She wanted freedom.
Freedom. Like lightning arching through the sky, reaching out its slender fingers to touch whatevery it loves, able to dance before the heavens in all of its brillience. In the blink of an eye...
They say the heavens weep. I say the heavens work, and by the sweat of his brow the earth is nurtured. Lightning is the power, the sparks of strength and ingenuity which orders the stratus and drives the winds, sending clouds rolling across the sky like a team of horses before its master who wields the whip.
As the first cracks snapped overhead, two scientists completed their experiements and stepped inside a gilded cage. If they had been more philisophical and had not been completely distracted by the storm, and each other, they might have drawn some grim metaphor from their current predicament. The two scientists, one a member of the aristocracy, the other over delusional guttersnipe clawing their way into golden halls. A woman constrained by expectation, the other a man constrained by debt. Both limited by their respective handicaps, but motivated by them to create and build. They relied on technology but found freedom in their shackles. They had more in common then not, and now, as Mashell and Thomas spoke of coils, currents and conductors, they realized a mutual connection beneath association. Was it ridiculous to think that two people might feel something for each other even after only a few days? Was the heart foolish to want more? It was not love. It was two souls touching. Wild thoughts passed between them and neither thought it mad. They spoke and were comprehended.
But Mashell was not a fool and Thomas had removed his rose colored glasses a long time ago. They knew their own hardships and survived, overcame them. But for a moment, they let their guards down and wondered about a future beyond inventions and the daily grind. They wondered about what life would look like with another person inside it.
And then Mashell remembered that Thomas tried to rob her with the aid of a gang of raccoons. To say her emotions were conflicted at this point would have been accurate. She would ruin him when the opportunity arrived. But something in his face and actions, the way he talked about electrical energy...she didn't see the monster she had envisioned earlier. Perhaps that was how he had seen her. A grumpy old woman hording all the treasures of the world in her clockwork castle. He was just taking from the excess and giving back to the people. Or perhaps he was selfish.
As she shivered in the rain, Thomas gave her his coat. After finishing their experiments, they retreated into the labratory dripping wet. Wrapped in blankets and sitting beside the fire, Mashell soon found her eyes growing heavy. Soon she was completely overtaken, her head finding purchase on something firm and strong, Mashell soon found herself drifting away from the mortal world, awash in her own sea of thoughts and ideas.
She was a boat bobbing along the a sea of dreams.
iar convas of her tent. The rain had stopped. But her governess was gone. Groggly, she stood and found her footing. Something was strange. Pulling the flap back she stepped outside into a world turned upside down. The sand was drifting around in strange shapes, bits of stone orbiting through the sky like a set of planets. As Mashell watched, the sand began to part as a large worm broke the surface and spiraled into the sky.
"Mashell Faraday, daughter of Abraham Faraday. Walking in the Void." The voice filled the air, the particles of sand which floated in the air pulsing with every word. Mashell felt her ears ringing. She grit rolled across her teeth and felt chaulky on her tongue. "A dream. This is a dream."
"It is the Dream. A place of pure imagination," the voice intoned.
"Who are you if this is my imagination then." Mashell asked, trying to hide the tremor in her own voice.
"I didn't say it was your imagination. It is imagination."
Mashell was very certain she wanted to wake up. Maybe she had contracted some fever or eaten something which was messing with her brain. They tea did taste slightly more potent then she was used too. This was a dream though. Mysterious voices and strange shapes forming in the sand were normal, right? Like the one that had been slowly forming in the cyclone of sand which had been forming on her left. At first it had looked like a vague shape, but slowly it took fractal form, slowly becoming humanoid, their face obscured in broken, pulsing shapes.
"The silent girl forgotten. The brilliant mind left to dream on her own. Dreams that could not be shared or appreciated. Dreams of a world seen through a Aetheric lense. Her tutors told her she was talented, gifted in the Quintessence. But the girl saw a day where the secrets of nature would produce power unknown to man before. Power given to the common man. The Fire of Talos."
Mashell listened, thunderstruck, as the humanoid transitioned into engines of industry, towering cities and alien machines. Her ideas. These were her designs. It was beautiful. And like a wave across the shore, the sand was swept up into the humanoid form again as it walked before her, hands behind its back, head tilted forward as if conveying a secret. Mashell felt her thoughts take shape. The clarity and volume, as if it were her own voice suprised her. "My vision."
"A reality," the figure replied. "You have been told from birth that you carry responsibility. You have been bred and instructed to walk a path set forth for you by society. But a girl minds her teachers and follows her lessons. A woman chooses her own path."
The figure melted away into the sand, and suddenly she found two paths set before her, cutting a way through th endless wasteland. "No path is easy. There will be obstacles and people who will try and tear you down. But dreams are addictive. Dreams are shared by mortal souls." Mashell saw a new figure, a boy working in the sewers beneath a city, the boy growing into a man who tinkered with gears and dreamed of a world like her own. A shared vision of the future.
And she chose a path, and walked among the Dreamers.
A great mystery among modern philosphy is expressed in this question: if a king wages war, is he guilty for the death of all innocent life taken by the hands of his soldiers? Man can never know the full ramafications of his choices. To what end does a man live when he cannot see the end of things?
So many decisions were made on that morning. As the bodies were hauled from ashes, and firemen and constables combed though the ashes of the Shifty Whale, just a few doors down, a group of McNab's men handed around a bottle consumed with thoughts of vengence while growing more and more inebriated. There was little love lost for their foxy leader. But loyalty was a thing among those who lived on the street. You didn't have to like the man next to you. But he had your back. Your survival depended on it. More decisions were made in their drunken stupor, decisions which seemed sound at the time. The oaths taken, the bond of men attacked by a unseen foe created a comradery in those few who survived. As dawn broke across the hazy horizon, three members of the newly formed Whaler Gang beat a path to the most likely suspect in the conspiracy against their former leader.
It was why Thomas found the door of his labratory reduced to splinters as a bearman, a dogman and a human rushing in upon him with whiskey on their breath and murder in their hearts. The fog of sleep was replaced with the fog of confusion. No one can blame Thomas for being slow at putting together the peices of his choices, which had led to this point. Inwardly, upon realizing he was involuntarily involved in the murder of McNab, and his friends were the likely perpetrators, he became angry. But the only thing which stayed his hand which now rested upon his swordcane was Mashell. The Bearman, named Bastian, held her firmly in his paws. Prince, the nearby dogman, and the human, a man named Rod, presented the options available to Thomas; do what they wanted or someone was going to get hurt very badly. Thomas would have fought or fled, but he showed some courage for the woman who had fallen into this unfortunate business by no fault of her own.
But her choices had led her here as well. Miss Faraday was not ignorant nor was she innocent. She made choices which had brought her to this point. She may not have known the full consequences, the consequences were her's to bear as well. Thomas could not see this as he walked along the street, prodded by a small pistol which reminded him he was at a distinct disadvantage. They weaved their way towards the home of Roku. As they approached, they failed to notice the elusive Roku as he left his flat, his own machinations filling his mind.
The Dreamers slumbered. And she walked among them, stealing their dreams.
"Who is he?" Mashell asked to nobody in particular. "Is he my future?"
"The boy is one of many potencial branches along the path that you may take." The voice replied as the images shifted, changed and grew out in a series of paths like arms on a beam of lightning. "Events are even now changing as your fates may yet be entwined together. But I see a moment in time where your dream dies or it blossoms. Free will becomes your greatest enemy, and your most kindred friend."
He reached out and snuffed out the dream.
Any sensible person would have discarded this plan as far-fetched, ill-conceived and logically faulty. But that had never s topped Roku before. Using his superior intellect and deductive reasoning he went to a small theater in Low Park called the Umbrella Cafe. It was frequented by the denizens of Low Park, and featured local talent from the streets who told stories, sang the old songs and could entertain. A rarity at the Umbrella Cafe was a orc woman named Jasmine. Having grown up in the slums, Jasmine had survived factories, the steampipes and eventually graduated into moderately nicer accomodations as a cook and house maid, all the while retaining some attractive features and a beautiful voice. A orphan, Jasmine had a less natural Orc upbringing, made to fend for herself more then most orcs, she developed a tenacity and unwillingness to ever give up. But her half orc outcast "mother" showed her a sweetness and care for the things around her as often as she showed her the the back of her hand. It was likely that Jasmine was a half-breed herself, which further drove her apart from her own species. But Jasmine persevered, learning whatever she needed to get by and never stooping so low as to embrace they streets she grew up on. Her adoptive mother told her stories of both the human world, the brave warriors and cunning orcs and gave her a sense of belonging in a world that didn't know what to do with her.
This was who Fate had thrown into the way of a raccoon who sought only to save his own skin from a equally stubborn orc bounty hunter. How Roku convinced the woman to go along with this scheme would have baffled in the hollowed halls of philosophy for decades. If was fortunate for Roku that Jasmine spoke a simple amount of Teran and had thought that this might be a kind of audition for a part. She had heard of such eccentric ruses to test new talent. Because Jasmine had enough self pride and was handy enough with her fists to make any man rue the day he made her a fool.
As Roku returned from his quest successful, he just managed to reach his apartment when the bulldog, Prince, shuffled up behind him and pressed something cool into his back. Roku had been waylaid on the street before by people who had mistaken him for just another easy mark. And Roku, like most philanthropic young gentlemen of his day, said hell with that, and fired blindly over his shoulder in the direction of the assailent. A few inches to the left and Prince would have been exploring his own afterlife. Fate is cruel sometimes. Prince was a simple dogman who lived by the code of the street; kill or be killed. So he thrust his knife multiple times into the back of Roku, stabbing multiple raccoons. He then pushed, half dragged, the bleeding gang of raccoons up to his apartment and deposited him with a wet thump onto his recently cleaned floor.
Rod was of course very upset. Prince was indifferent as he wiped the knife on Roku's trouser leg. Jim, seeing his mater was injured, set about right at once, patching him up. Everyone else remained seated, frozen in place. Rod was very done with waiting and pressed the barrel of his pistol between the delicate pipes and gears of Mashell's magical voice box, placed around her throat. This was when Roku, perhaps delirious, forgot that he had never gotten the explosive device promised to him by Thomas, and began threatening everyone with permanant expulsion if they did not surrender. To his credit, Bastian was not the brightest in the bunch, and believed that Roku. It just so happened that he was loyal and would die with Rod and Prince despite his own apprehensions.
As this little group, protesting, pleading and threatening each other found themselves in these unforseen circumstances, the real perpetrator of this series of unfortunate events had arrived at the labratory of Thomas Thompson only to find it empty. Ed realized something must be off, and doing some truely amazing levels of deduction, arriving at a simple conclusion. His friends were in trouble. Running from the scene of the crime, Ed did not go to the closest constable. He did not mount a posse. He went to his new friend and benefactor, Roald.
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