Arcanum - Of Steamwork and Magic Ch. 17

December 13^th, 1885

While I had wished to set out upon the Gypsy's Promise under Captain Teach, the simple fact was that Mr. Bates' chosen man for all things nautical was simply not in the docks at Tarant, but was rather shipping freight to a mysterious, undisclosed location. Entirely above board, I was sure. Surely, Captain Teach would never mislead customs officials to transport goods for Mr. Bates in an extralegal fashion. The very idea was preposterous. And so instead, we paid for passage aboard a clipper called The Fairgale, under Captain William Rikerson. A bloviating, fat, goateed fellow with a bald patch and an ego nearly the same size as his boom, Rikerson was a positive boor for the entire voyage. Fortunately, he only invited me to his cabin to dine once - 'to meet the first orcish technologist!' he had said -- and spent the rest of the voyage down the Hadrian and around the southern tip of Arcanum trying to get into Virginia's good graces (to utterly no success.)

We sailed nearer to the island of Cattan than to the port city of Dernholm, but I still marked Dernholm upon my Atlas, using the telescope to fix the coordinates in my mind. I was still planning to head there, once this business with T'Sen-Ang was dealt with.

But still. On 13^th of December, 1885, the Fairgale arrived in the port of Caladon, the capital of the Kingdom of Arland. It was just as magnificent as I remembered: A broad city that looked to be nearly half the size of Tarant, with a bare fraction of the factories -- and what smoke there was struck crackling fields of magick that sparkled and flashed above the city proper. The dock district bustled and thrummed with activity, with stevedores unloading cargo from ships bearing the flags of several cities, while finely dressed Royal guards marched along the docks, displaying their weaponry: A magickal sword on the left hip, a revolver in the right.

Caladon sought to merge the two practices of technology and magick. I had heard interesting rumors about their successes (and their spectacular failures) in the field. The magickal gun invented by Professor Bronnywick? An explosive, lethal boondoggle. But those mages who had used the school of Air magic to disperse the smog before it could add a malodorous pal to the city? That seemed to be working quite well. It stuck me, then, that the solution was proximity and distance: The spells were being cast in the air above the city, not on the factories themselves.

"This place is quite something!" Gillian exclaimed, looking about herself at the broad main street that wound past shops. "It's like Tarant, but...smaller. But not nearly as provincial as I had expected. Obviously, it lacks some of Tarant's polish..." She nodded, unaware of several passing pedestrians turning to glower at her less than well chosen words. "Ah! Is that the castle?"

"Ah, hum..." I coughed. "Gillian, do remember, we're guests here."

"What the devil?" Virginia muttered. She stooped down, her face darkening. "Oh that blasted Wight!"

"What?" I turned and saw that Virginia had found upon the ground a folded, yellowed copy of The Tarantian, which looked to be packed full of news from Caladon. I knew that the Tarantian had quite a reach, but to find it even here, in one of Tarant's few remaining rivals upon the continent of Arcanum, was quite remarkable. But then I saw the headline and my blood ran cold: WHYTECHURCH MURDERER STRIKES!

Virginia handed me the paper. Unfolding and reading it, I found that the story was just as I expected from Victor Wight's yellow journalism: Gratuitous description of the victim as a 'young lady of decadence' and 'a half-elven strumpet.' The article went on at length at the fashions by which this poor girl had been dismembered but seemed to care little for the fact that she had been a living woman until a few days before. But I did take note that, at the end of the article, the chief of police for Caladon -- one Chief Inspector Henderson -- was interested in any who knew a thing of this 'Whytechurch Ripper.'

"I wonder why there's such -hic- such a fuss about it," Sally said, her voice only somewhat bleary as she wobbled along the path behind us. "S' a dangerous prof...proffershin..." She ducked her head forward. "S'almost as bad as sailoring it is."

"Sally, did you sneak some vodka off the Fairgale?" Gillian asked, frowning ever so slightly.

"Nnnnooooo," Sally said. "I took it."

Thus, we walked through the streets of Caladon, getting a feel for the place. Virginia stayed ever by my side, but 'Magnus' and Sally did sometimes take excursions upon themselves, to investigate bars and taverns and other places that would slow us down. By the time the evening began to settle around the city, I was feeling better about my grasp of its dimensions -- though it was grand, it was far from the same size and stature of Tarant. Virginia, though, looked increasingly wary as the day passed on into dusk, and when we took a moment to rest our feet at a coffee shop, she ordered a pot with as much cream and sugar as could be contrived to fit in a cup while leaving room for coffee. Drinking it down, she started to drum her heel upon the ground.

"What is it, Virginia?" I asked.

"Oh?" she asked. "What?"

"Virginia, I know you," I said, quietly, reaching down to caress the head of Dogmeat, who was sprawled across my feet -- clearly, he thought there was no finer place in the world for him. Electrical lamps began to buzz atop metal lamp posts, but the Caladonese citizenry that walked by seemed all the more interested in taking their city in. The night was warm, despite it being December. This far down south, near the equatorial sweep of the southern seas, even the winter was mild. For someone raised in the hard scrabble of the Morbihan desert and Virginia's own tough and tumble youth, the weather had yet to reach a point where we might need jackets.

Virginia looked at me. Her eyes were shadowed in the strange half-twilight that came from being situated between lamps. When the lamp nearest to us finally did flicker on, it came first with a flare, then a shadow, then a flare again, casting Virginia's features as if she were in a kinetoscope. First frame, a look of uncertainty. Then guilt. Then sadness. Then...resolve. "Sir, may I check on something?" She bit her lip. "Dogmeat can keep you safe, right? I...I know, it is my duty to protect you, but-"

I reached across the table, smiling at her. "Go, Virginia. Do whatever it is you need to do."

Virginia opened her mouth, then closed it. "T-Thank you, Resh," she whispered. Standing in a single jolting motion, she turned and strode off. As she went, Dogmeat lifted his head and made a soft whimpering noise. I reached down to pet him gently, scritching behind his ear. With Maggie and Sally and Gillian and now Virginia all off and about, I felt strangely unburdened. I pulled my Atlas out and checked through my notes, beginning back with my earliest jotted down remembrances. I smiled at the first notes that I had made concerning Virginia. Even almost a year before, I had noted 'how fine she may be in bed, if she retains such a blushing, easily flustered character.' Though, I supposed that I would have to push things to realms as of yet untried to get her flustered in bed again. Maybe I could bring up bug...er...

My thoughts trailed off as I saw what I had written under that.

Upon the HTAFM we found 1 ½ Ogre + symbol of Maxim Machinery, Caladon.

I closed my Atlas with a sharp clunk, the noise lifting Dogmeat's head up and setting his tail wagging. I raised my hand, calling over the serving wench who brought coffee. She was a rather comely half-orc, wearing menial garb and sporting a pair of smallish tusks. She grinned at me, an invitation in her eyes: "Can I assist you, sir?"

I chuckled, softly. A year before, I could have spent time with this fine green lass. As it was, I stood and bowed my head to her. "Might I ask you to inform my companion, when she returns, that I have made my way to Maxim Machinery's factory and for her to ask after me there?"

"Oh, aye?" the half-orcess said, nodding. "Who was she, sir, if you don't mind me askin'. She looked armored like a knight, she did."

I grinned. "We're adventurers, after a fashion," I said.

"Oh, aye," the half-orcess said, her voice knowing. "Well, then Mr. Adventurer, I'll be right sure to tell her you went on down to mad old Hieronymus' shop."

"You know the man?" I asked. "Mr. Maxim himself?"

"Oh, aye!" the half-orcess said -- and I reflected on how she had given the same pair of words three distinct inflections, transforming them from coy and coquettish to domineering and even faintly imperious. "The old coot's been drinking our coffee dry for the past year, bemoaning everything that's happened to him. His factory burned down, you know. They say that he did it hisself for the insurance money, but I never would say no such thing about him. He may be daft, but he's no shady character." She nodded, primly. "And you can take tha' to the bank."

I chuckled, then flipped a golden coin to her. She caught it, then nearly dropped it. "For the information, miss..."

"L-Linda!" she said, her eyes wide as saucers.

"Good evening, Miss Linda," I said, tipping my imaginary cap to her.

Striding through the city streets, I retraced the steps to the part of Caladon dominated by factories. Night had truly fallen by the time I reached Maxim Machinery's factory itself -- and seeing it in such a state nearly broke my heart. Maxim Machinery, for all the dubious ethicality of constructing machine guns, had been a byword for automatons and clockwork for nearly as long as there had been automatons. To see the factory reduced to a charred, burned out husk was quite a start. The front doors remained knocked inwards, while the interior showed the signs of fire damage. No one had even paid to get the twisted lumps of metal and gears that made up the machinery inside of the factory removed. However, observing the building from a distance at night did give me an easy clue as to where to find Hieronymus Maxim: A light glowed within an out building attached to the side of the factory in what had once been the overseer's office.

I set out, making my careful way over the detritus and the trash that had piled up in the alleyway that led to the office's side door. I rapped on the door -- and jerked aside as a bullet tore through the wooden planks of the door. The shot ricocheted off the wall behind me and skittered off down the alleyway. I stumbled against the brick wall of the factory as the door burst open and a man of middling age stood before me, back lit by the cheap oil lamp that burned within the office proper -- which I saw now had been converted into a sleeping establishment.

"Throw your hands to the sky, sirrah!" the man said. He had a bristling beard and rapidly receding hair, both of which had gone to shocking white hues despite his relative youth. His eyes were dark pits beneath a fiercely protruding brow-line, and he stepped from his office and living room, leveling his pistol at me. But as he shifted out of the line of the light from his room, the flickering oil light shone on my features and he lowered his pistol, his bristly eyebrows raising up slightly. "Oh. Forgive me, I thought you were a bugler."

I had to admit, I was rather startled to not be accosted even more by this fellow, considering my skin color. It was then that I noticed that the light shone on my chest and belly, showing off the fine cut of my three piece suit. I coughed, then stood up a bit taller, my face remaining in shadow: "Oh, think nothing of it, old boy."

I held out my hand. "Rayburn Cog," I said. He took it and shook my hand, keeping his eyes on mine -- thus, missing that the hand I offered was emerald green. "I'm here to speak to you about the factory fire and your heavier than air flying machines."

Hieronymus Maxim's eyes widened and he looked near ready to burst into tears. He grasped my forearm, then drew me close. "Sir," he said, then stopped as I stumbled into the light. But so intense, so fierce, so overwhelming was his relief, that rather than thrusting me away or reacting with hostility, he simply said again: "Sir. Let us speak inside."

***

Despite his clearly reduced stature, Maxim was still able to offer me some fine port and a chair to sit, as well as a few technical manuals to peruse. They might have been out of date, but his copy of Machining: Firearms and Engines was filled with the man's own illustrations and equations. His grasp of the actions of gasses under pressure -- whether compacted by pistons or explosions -- was quite remarkable, and I could see some ways to refine my own theories on firearm design, just by seeing how he had adjusted the hypothetical design for a "blade launcher." As I read, though, Maxim made for himself a cup of very strong coffee which he liberally dosed with whiskey.

"They came a mere day before the machines were ready to fly," he said. "They beat my poor test pilots, Wilbur and Orville, so badly that Wilbur can still only speak haltingly and forgets his sentences if they're longer than five words, and Orville will never walk again. But what was worse was that they set my factory aflame and then flew off with the machines. This was all at night, too, so the city watch saw nothing but the flames, and by the time dawn had come, my areoplanes were completely gone."

"Areoplanes..." I said, slowly. "Were they armed?"

"Both with two of my machined guns," Maxim said, quite proudly. "Orville was against it. Silly lad, he seemed to think that that ungainly...blimp..." He spoke the word with some venom. "Was to be a peaceful tool. But it takes no imagination what so ever to see that the Zephyr could easily be transformed into a...a bombing machine. Picture it: Three or four of those lighter than air platforms, but loaded with hundreds of tons of bombs, rather than fancy living accouterments. They could fly above a city and then drop these munitions upon them. Could anyone retaliate against such a thing?" He shook his head.

"Sir!" I said, my voice aghast. The image he painted was as absurd as it was horrifying. "War may have become bloodier and it may have lost its chivalrousness, but it remains constrained. No one, not in Tarant nor in Caladon, would simply...wipe a city out from the air. The very idea would surely balk even the most hardened man."

Maxim snorted. "Maybe. But then again, the best defense against something is not a chain of ethics and morality -- it is good hard steel. And that was what my areoplanes could deliver." He sighed. "Instead, they were stolen..."

"And used to demonstrate the very reason you constructed them," I said, quietly. "Have you not read the Tarantian article on the Zephyr?"

"No, why?" Maxim asked.

I described to the increasingly horrified Hieronymus Maxim what had transpired nearly a year before: The machined guns used to perforate and then immolate the lighter than air ship. As I described what happened, Maxim's face grew more and more pale, until at last, I was finished and he was left stricken. His hand went to his chest and he shook his head. "Dear Gods...and my machines? They were shot down?"

I nodded. "From what I could decipher from the wreckage, the half-ogres who stole them were less than skilled in landing the craft once they had taken to the air."

"And they would have only had enough fuel for less than five hours of flight..." Maxim groaned. His hands went to his face. "I had some hope, some, that they had been taken to a safe place, maybe studied. But if they're destroyed then all my hopes are lost."

My brow furrowed. "How do you mean, Mr. Maxim?"

He looked up at me, his eyes brimming with unshed tears. "The King and the Technological Council have both rescinded funds from my factory. My enemies in the council claimed that I had set fire to my own factory, that I was a fake and that heavier than air flight was utterly impossible. Without proof that they flew, I am utterly desolate."

"Proof..." I said, slowly. My mind reeled backwards through all that I had seen, all that I had collected. For some reason, what struck in my mind was not proof on how to whether flying machines could work, or anything of the sort. Instead, all that came to mind was the memory of finding Bessie Toonie's boot. That long ago quest, seeming so quaint and minor compared to the weighty orbits that I had entered, echoed in my mind...and then the reason why struck me with the force of an almighty explosion. I snapped my fingers, then slung my backpack from where I had placed it, flipping the container open and beginning to rummage about within. I had carried so many strange objects that I had collected in my travels, many of which seemed to be of little value -- but may some day come of use. At last, I found what I was searching for, in the depths of the pack. Wrapped in cloth to protect it against the rigors of the road, I withdrew the object with some reverence, before unwrapping it.

"What is that?" Maxim asked as I held to him the camera I had recovered from one of the corpses in the wreckage of the Zephyr.

"That is a camera, taken from the wreckage of the Zephyr," I said, "If anything has the evidence that you seek, good sir, this will have it."

Maxim looked at the camera as if it was his first born child. "H-How could I ever repay you, good orc?" he whispered, his voice husky. "Even if this proves false, it is still more of a hope than I've had in many a month."

I chuckled. "I don't suppose you know where to find Victor Misk?"

"The Misks?" Maxim asked, looking up at me. "Why, I've dined at their home several times! They're on 9, Gray Wolf Terrace, near the dockside part of the city, in the two story home with the Tullian atrium and the fountain."

I beamed.

***

The next morning dawned. Virginia, 'Magnus', Sally, Gillian and I came to 9 Gray Wolf Terrace to find that the house described by Hieronymus Maxim was all the more elegant and beautiful than we might have expected. The walls were decorated with climbing fines, which themselves were guided by latticework and wooden frames to hang over the Tullian atrium that made up the entrance to the home itself. Essentially, rather than simply walking in through a front door, one instead first came into the atrium and could feel the delightful coolness that the shadows and the greenery provided. However, I did note that the fountain in the center of the atrium had been left dry and quiet, giving an eerie, reserved air to the home proper.

Ringing the door bell, I adjusted my suit jacket to try and bring some extra warmth to myself -- the morning was crisp and cool, even by Tarantian standards -- and the skies threatened rain. In fact, before the door had even opened, one single raindrop had fallen from the skies to pat gently upon the ground by my foot. The door did, at last, open upon the solemn face of a suited footman. He looked at the lot of us, his lip curling more and more as he took in each of our features.

"May I assist you, sir?" He asked, his voice thick and droll.

"Good day, sir," I said. "I am Rayburn Cog and-"

"Doctor Cog?" the footman stood up ever so slightly more. "The inventor of the accelerated pistol?"

"Ah, you've heard of me?" I asked.

The footman opened the door a mite wider. "The master was quite impressed by the design, I believe. What brings you to our door on this day of mourning?"

A frisson of nervous tension slid along my spine. It was now that I realized that the black on black that this gentleman wore might have more than fashion in it. I adjusted my tie, then spoke: "I was not aware that any tragedy had struck. I am here to see Mr. Misk about a..." I saw the footman's face fall. My face drew into grim lines and I frowned. "I see that I've come too late. Might I speak to the mistress of this house, then?"