SteampunkGirl
Experienced
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2011
- Posts
- 73
(Closed for Vail_Indigo)
There are worlds where the Mongols never fell, where the tower of Babel was finished, where the pyramids never lost their luster. Worlds where the laws of physics are strange and foreign, worlds that seem romantic and adventurous to our modern eyes. Within one of these comparable oddities, there was a story that would thrill us, if we were capable of recording it.
Imagine zooming past the galaxies in that incomprehensible sea of space, rushing past civilizations too distant to ever know. The vacuum cannot touch you, for you are just an observer. The Milky Way looms, and you dive into the orion arm, heading towards a small star that we call the sun. The little blue planet glistens in it's rays, and your incorporeal body makes no flash of light as you hurdle through the atmosphere. You approach a large island floating in the atlantic, west of europe. London is in the same place, but there is something different. You race towards northern england, approaching a sea of strange, floating cities. What could possibly power them, you think? Perhaps you will soon discover that fact. There is one city, in the middle of the metropolitan mass, that seems to be more lively than the others. Zeppelins and airships careen between its towering skyscrapers, billowing clouds drifting between its steel wonders. You pass a busy looking docking facility, bustling with trade and haggling businesspeople. You head deeper into it the iron jungle, near the floor of the massive levitating platform. You enter into a large, well equipped, and well funded workshop. That is where our strange tale takes its genesis.
* * * * * *
AUGUST 22, 1821
11:42 AM
Rosalind and her father had been here, smack dab in the middle of Company territory, for just over two years. Though she was only twelve, she could remember clear as day when the had left london. It was a hectic, chaotic day, and though he offered only comforting words, she could sense his fear. Kaylee had never been like other children. She noticed things. Things that inferred other things. Things which which lead to inferences, which lead to certain conclusions. She had concluded that they had been running from a terribly dangerous foe. And since then, she had concluded that that dangerous foe was none other than the English monarchy.
Rosie stretched languorously, yawning as her father pounded at the door to her bedroom within their small apartment in the corner of the workshop. Father had never cared about extravagance, though he could afford it. It was enough for him to live right in the middle of his work, where he could pursue all the absent minded whims that caught his fancy. "I asked you to get up an hour ago, Rosie, and I won't ask again. I need your help with something." His voice was slightly muffled through the door.
Well, she couldn't remember that. She must have fallen back asleep. Wiping the grit from her eyes, she got dressed and went into the workshop. There was much to be done. Repairs for Company equipment, making new levitron capacitors, even weapons and engine repair for Company privateers. Rosie had been learning in her fathers shop for years, and she knew how good she was. She could see it in his eyes when he offered praise, beaming to skeptical patrons.
As she walked to the floor of the building, she passed his office. Even Rosie was forbidden entry. The famed, wily Dr. Larimore became distant and wistful at night, when he retired to its mysterious interior. Her questions were met with his urgings that she was not ready for such things. Even that, perhaps no one was. Not even him.
The sun, though it never reached this level of the city, would have ascended and descended the heavens. Their work stretched into the evening, The Doctor educating his daughter himself on the things that composed his work. Smiling, she popped her grease-streaked head from the hatch on something he called 'The tin man.' (A contract for the Company.) The radio blared recent news.
"Foreign dignitaries representing Pharaoh Meresankh visited Company president Franklin today, presumably to discuss the Company monopoly on levitron capacitors and their fierce, sometimes combative, stranglehold on production. A always, it seems obvious to everyone but politicians that these 'talks' will arrive nowhere. In other news, Dr. Larimore has recently signed a research and development contract with the Privateers guild. Close ties to the Company notwithstanding, the privateers and the good Doctor have drawn the ire of...." Her father clicked off the radio, frowning.
"Time for bed, darling. That's enough work for today, you did a fine job-"
A terrifying thunder echoed about the cavernous enclosure. Someone had rigged the door with explosives. "Stay in there, Rosie." Her father said to her, his eyes suddenly steely and immovable. "And don't make a sound." He reached beneath the workbench and pulled forth a double barrel, break-action shotgun, opening it over his forearm and pushing a couple shells into the thing.
Scared and confused, the girl pulled the hatch shut as quietly as she could, fearing that whatever happened next would shift her perceptions forever. Who was her father, really? Why had someone saw fit to forcefully break into her peaceful home? A place of knowledge and comforting, familiar machinery.
She peered out of the tinted viewport, hearing the shotgun click closed through the grates designed specifically for letting sound in. Three burly men entered, and one mousy, slimy looking man in a business suit. Her father leveled the shotgun at the group, narrowing his eyes.
"Easy now, old timer." It was the slimy man. "We just want to talk. Wheres that sweet little girl I've been hearing so much about? Rosalind, that's her name, isn't it?"
Her father wasted no time. "Who are you, and who sent you?!"
The man laughed, hitting his companions arm with humor. The three of them guffawed along with him. Rosie wasn't sure they knew what they were laughing about. "You have two bullets in that gun, old timer, and there's four of us. But Ok, I'll humor you." He paused to light a cigarette, before continuing. "You pissed off a lot of people when you left the good king's realm, you know that I'm sure. I mean, it has to be one of the all time dumbest moves in history. Not only does the King want your head on a stake, but the Pharoah, the Tsar, the Emperor, and the bloody Cheif of Indian cheifs do as well. You don't slight that much power without repercussions, friend. You know very well what I'm looking for. You knew the Company couldn't keep you safe forever."
Her father said nothing, keeping his stony expression.
"WHERE IS THE PHILOSOPHERS STONE."
Rosie jerked in surprise at the suddenness of the outburst when juxtaposed with his earlier sleazy calmness.
"I don't know what your talking about."
His laugh was now grating and condescending. "Come on now, Doctor. Larry... jog his memory. I don't think he would be foolish enough to use that rickety shotgun, now would he?"
Don't shoot, daddy. Rosie pleaded silently to herself, in her bulky metal shell.
The shotgun stayed where it was, even as one of the large men, 'Larry', approached him with a certain menace. Please... Please... Rosie almost screamed as the deafening shotgun blast reached her ears. She clamped her hand over her mouth as the remains of Larry's head spattered over the remaining guests. The remaining two brutes pumped the hapless doctor full of lead before her got off the second shot.
Rosie bit her hand until she tasted blood, unable to feel the pain she was inflicting upon herself as the first tear of many slipped down her cheek.
The sleazy man roared. "IMBECILES. Now how are we supposed to find the stone?"
Rosie could barely hear them through the haze of her grief. She sat shellshocked in the tin man.
"I didn't want to be the one to die, boss." The other nodded in agreement.
"Shutup, the both of you. Tear the place apart. It's got to be here somewhere..."
Rosie permitted herself the quietest of sobs as the three of them went about their business, kicking down the door to her fathers office and rummaging about its contents. Slowly, as she stared at her fathers lifeless, bleeding body, crushing sadness underwent a transformation into burning, seething fury. An idea formed in her mind, and with clenched teeth, she climbed further into the bowels of the tin man. Hot, angry tears rolled down her face as she reattached hydraulic hoses and turned bolts, furiously finishing the task she had undertaken at the dawn of the day.
By the time she has crawled back into the cockpit, the three men were passing her viewport, on the way back to the exit of her broken home. Rosie wrapped her small fingers about the crank, and wrenched it clockwise. Steam hissed out of the machines many vents, the clanking sound of gears filled the workshop.
"What the hell... there's someone in that thing! Fire!"
The metal behemoth slowly, laboriously rose to its feet, gunfire blaring, the lead sparking ineffectually against the thick hull. Pulling the levers, she walked it towards the three with heavy, booming steps.
"Run!"
Pointing the arm, she pulled a trigger, flame bursting and engulfing the two thugs. They screamed and flailed, dieing a horrific death As the slimy man bolted for the exit, a small package held in his hands. Rosie turned to him, shooting liquid fire, but he was out of range. He was gone.
That is how, at a mere fourteen years old, Rosalind Larimore knew the meaning of loss. And of revenge. But not enough of revenge. She would like to know more.
* * * * * *
JANUARY 12, 1829
8:37 PM
http://i1005.photobucket.com/albums/af180/Taliah32/9638_9f64.jpg?t=1295997292
Rose huddled in the bed within her poorly heated apartment. The tattered blanket was clutched about her neck with white-knuckled fingers. Her fathers diary was held in the other, the padlock along the edge hanging unfastened, its key hanging around her neck. The book had puzzled her ever since that terrible night when he was murdered. She had never understood how far his mysteriousness had extended. Suspicions that she had delved deeper into his being than any other, even her dead mother, overwhelmed her thoughts these days. The only person who knew how deep he was was himself. Before her eyes, on the yellowed page, was a strange and cryptic image, filled with alchemical symbolism and captioned with the nonsensical mutterings of a madman, or, alternatively, a great seer.
http://www.alchemywebsite.com/virtual_museum/Images/vatican_ott_lat_3032.jpg
"The philosophers stone must never be held by those concerned with the material, the corporeal. It is knowledge and emptiness. Love and hate, and the power of great foresight."
The voice tubes interrupted her revery. "We need you down here, Rose. An Aeronaut just pulled in, and you would not believe the state of her ship. They need the best. And apparently raiders have killed their engineer."
She carefully locked the diary, placing it in her chest that held all of her belongings. She had next to nothing. Only the joy of machines. The docks always had something to fix. The pay was shitty, obviously, but it kept her above the poverty line, if only just.
"I'll be right down, James."
The raiders had sprung up with a vengeance over the last eight years, and nobody knew why. It only served to make the Aeronauts all the more romantic in the public eye. More and more, the Company had become a bastion of civilization. It was the governments, united in their opposition, that bred chaos. Many suspected that they were the ones supplying raiders with levitron capacitors, but they could prove nothing. How had they come by the means to produce them? It was a mystery that vexed the Company leadership to no end.
Rose's heart still hungered for revenge, to claim that stone for herself, as her rightful inheritance. She still didn't know exactly what it was, but it was hers, and one day, the bastards would pay. She had no leads, nowhere to begin her search. But, perhaps this Aeronaut would know some tidbit. There was always a chance. And whether she did have something or not, perhaps she would seek a job with her. It was certainly better than biding her time in the heart of the Company...
There are worlds where the Mongols never fell, where the tower of Babel was finished, where the pyramids never lost their luster. Worlds where the laws of physics are strange and foreign, worlds that seem romantic and adventurous to our modern eyes. Within one of these comparable oddities, there was a story that would thrill us, if we were capable of recording it.
Imagine zooming past the galaxies in that incomprehensible sea of space, rushing past civilizations too distant to ever know. The vacuum cannot touch you, for you are just an observer. The Milky Way looms, and you dive into the orion arm, heading towards a small star that we call the sun. The little blue planet glistens in it's rays, and your incorporeal body makes no flash of light as you hurdle through the atmosphere. You approach a large island floating in the atlantic, west of europe. London is in the same place, but there is something different. You race towards northern england, approaching a sea of strange, floating cities. What could possibly power them, you think? Perhaps you will soon discover that fact. There is one city, in the middle of the metropolitan mass, that seems to be more lively than the others. Zeppelins and airships careen between its towering skyscrapers, billowing clouds drifting between its steel wonders. You pass a busy looking docking facility, bustling with trade and haggling businesspeople. You head deeper into it the iron jungle, near the floor of the massive levitating platform. You enter into a large, well equipped, and well funded workshop. That is where our strange tale takes its genesis.
* * * * * *
AUGUST 22, 1821
11:42 AM
Rosalind and her father had been here, smack dab in the middle of Company territory, for just over two years. Though she was only twelve, she could remember clear as day when the had left london. It was a hectic, chaotic day, and though he offered only comforting words, she could sense his fear. Kaylee had never been like other children. She noticed things. Things that inferred other things. Things which which lead to inferences, which lead to certain conclusions. She had concluded that they had been running from a terribly dangerous foe. And since then, she had concluded that that dangerous foe was none other than the English monarchy.
Rosie stretched languorously, yawning as her father pounded at the door to her bedroom within their small apartment in the corner of the workshop. Father had never cared about extravagance, though he could afford it. It was enough for him to live right in the middle of his work, where he could pursue all the absent minded whims that caught his fancy. "I asked you to get up an hour ago, Rosie, and I won't ask again. I need your help with something." His voice was slightly muffled through the door.
Well, she couldn't remember that. She must have fallen back asleep. Wiping the grit from her eyes, she got dressed and went into the workshop. There was much to be done. Repairs for Company equipment, making new levitron capacitors, even weapons and engine repair for Company privateers. Rosie had been learning in her fathers shop for years, and she knew how good she was. She could see it in his eyes when he offered praise, beaming to skeptical patrons.
As she walked to the floor of the building, she passed his office. Even Rosie was forbidden entry. The famed, wily Dr. Larimore became distant and wistful at night, when he retired to its mysterious interior. Her questions were met with his urgings that she was not ready for such things. Even that, perhaps no one was. Not even him.
The sun, though it never reached this level of the city, would have ascended and descended the heavens. Their work stretched into the evening, The Doctor educating his daughter himself on the things that composed his work. Smiling, she popped her grease-streaked head from the hatch on something he called 'The tin man.' (A contract for the Company.) The radio blared recent news.
"Foreign dignitaries representing Pharaoh Meresankh visited Company president Franklin today, presumably to discuss the Company monopoly on levitron capacitors and their fierce, sometimes combative, stranglehold on production. A always, it seems obvious to everyone but politicians that these 'talks' will arrive nowhere. In other news, Dr. Larimore has recently signed a research and development contract with the Privateers guild. Close ties to the Company notwithstanding, the privateers and the good Doctor have drawn the ire of...." Her father clicked off the radio, frowning.
"Time for bed, darling. That's enough work for today, you did a fine job-"
A terrifying thunder echoed about the cavernous enclosure. Someone had rigged the door with explosives. "Stay in there, Rosie." Her father said to her, his eyes suddenly steely and immovable. "And don't make a sound." He reached beneath the workbench and pulled forth a double barrel, break-action shotgun, opening it over his forearm and pushing a couple shells into the thing.
Scared and confused, the girl pulled the hatch shut as quietly as she could, fearing that whatever happened next would shift her perceptions forever. Who was her father, really? Why had someone saw fit to forcefully break into her peaceful home? A place of knowledge and comforting, familiar machinery.
She peered out of the tinted viewport, hearing the shotgun click closed through the grates designed specifically for letting sound in. Three burly men entered, and one mousy, slimy looking man in a business suit. Her father leveled the shotgun at the group, narrowing his eyes.
"Easy now, old timer." It was the slimy man. "We just want to talk. Wheres that sweet little girl I've been hearing so much about? Rosalind, that's her name, isn't it?"
Her father wasted no time. "Who are you, and who sent you?!"
The man laughed, hitting his companions arm with humor. The three of them guffawed along with him. Rosie wasn't sure they knew what they were laughing about. "You have two bullets in that gun, old timer, and there's four of us. But Ok, I'll humor you." He paused to light a cigarette, before continuing. "You pissed off a lot of people when you left the good king's realm, you know that I'm sure. I mean, it has to be one of the all time dumbest moves in history. Not only does the King want your head on a stake, but the Pharoah, the Tsar, the Emperor, and the bloody Cheif of Indian cheifs do as well. You don't slight that much power without repercussions, friend. You know very well what I'm looking for. You knew the Company couldn't keep you safe forever."
Her father said nothing, keeping his stony expression.
"WHERE IS THE PHILOSOPHERS STONE."
Rosie jerked in surprise at the suddenness of the outburst when juxtaposed with his earlier sleazy calmness.
"I don't know what your talking about."
His laugh was now grating and condescending. "Come on now, Doctor. Larry... jog his memory. I don't think he would be foolish enough to use that rickety shotgun, now would he?"
Don't shoot, daddy. Rosie pleaded silently to herself, in her bulky metal shell.
The shotgun stayed where it was, even as one of the large men, 'Larry', approached him with a certain menace. Please... Please... Rosie almost screamed as the deafening shotgun blast reached her ears. She clamped her hand over her mouth as the remains of Larry's head spattered over the remaining guests. The remaining two brutes pumped the hapless doctor full of lead before her got off the second shot.
Rosie bit her hand until she tasted blood, unable to feel the pain she was inflicting upon herself as the first tear of many slipped down her cheek.
The sleazy man roared. "IMBECILES. Now how are we supposed to find the stone?"
Rosie could barely hear them through the haze of her grief. She sat shellshocked in the tin man.
"I didn't want to be the one to die, boss." The other nodded in agreement.
"Shutup, the both of you. Tear the place apart. It's got to be here somewhere..."
Rosie permitted herself the quietest of sobs as the three of them went about their business, kicking down the door to her fathers office and rummaging about its contents. Slowly, as she stared at her fathers lifeless, bleeding body, crushing sadness underwent a transformation into burning, seething fury. An idea formed in her mind, and with clenched teeth, she climbed further into the bowels of the tin man. Hot, angry tears rolled down her face as she reattached hydraulic hoses and turned bolts, furiously finishing the task she had undertaken at the dawn of the day.
By the time she has crawled back into the cockpit, the three men were passing her viewport, on the way back to the exit of her broken home. Rosie wrapped her small fingers about the crank, and wrenched it clockwise. Steam hissed out of the machines many vents, the clanking sound of gears filled the workshop.
"What the hell... there's someone in that thing! Fire!"
The metal behemoth slowly, laboriously rose to its feet, gunfire blaring, the lead sparking ineffectually against the thick hull. Pulling the levers, she walked it towards the three with heavy, booming steps.
"Run!"
Pointing the arm, she pulled a trigger, flame bursting and engulfing the two thugs. They screamed and flailed, dieing a horrific death As the slimy man bolted for the exit, a small package held in his hands. Rosie turned to him, shooting liquid fire, but he was out of range. He was gone.
That is how, at a mere fourteen years old, Rosalind Larimore knew the meaning of loss. And of revenge. But not enough of revenge. She would like to know more.
* * * * * *
JANUARY 12, 1829
8:37 PM
http://i1005.photobucket.com/albums/af180/Taliah32/9638_9f64.jpg?t=1295997292
Rose huddled in the bed within her poorly heated apartment. The tattered blanket was clutched about her neck with white-knuckled fingers. Her fathers diary was held in the other, the padlock along the edge hanging unfastened, its key hanging around her neck. The book had puzzled her ever since that terrible night when he was murdered. She had never understood how far his mysteriousness had extended. Suspicions that she had delved deeper into his being than any other, even her dead mother, overwhelmed her thoughts these days. The only person who knew how deep he was was himself. Before her eyes, on the yellowed page, was a strange and cryptic image, filled with alchemical symbolism and captioned with the nonsensical mutterings of a madman, or, alternatively, a great seer.
http://www.alchemywebsite.com/virtual_museum/Images/vatican_ott_lat_3032.jpg
"The philosophers stone must never be held by those concerned with the material, the corporeal. It is knowledge and emptiness. Love and hate, and the power of great foresight."
The voice tubes interrupted her revery. "We need you down here, Rose. An Aeronaut just pulled in, and you would not believe the state of her ship. They need the best. And apparently raiders have killed their engineer."
She carefully locked the diary, placing it in her chest that held all of her belongings. She had next to nothing. Only the joy of machines. The docks always had something to fix. The pay was shitty, obviously, but it kept her above the poverty line, if only just.
"I'll be right down, James."
The raiders had sprung up with a vengeance over the last eight years, and nobody knew why. It only served to make the Aeronauts all the more romantic in the public eye. More and more, the Company had become a bastion of civilization. It was the governments, united in their opposition, that bred chaos. Many suspected that they were the ones supplying raiders with levitron capacitors, but they could prove nothing. How had they come by the means to produce them? It was a mystery that vexed the Company leadership to no end.
Rose's heart still hungered for revenge, to claim that stone for herself, as her rightful inheritance. She still didn't know exactly what it was, but it was hers, and one day, the bastards would pay. She had no leads, nowhere to begin her search. But, perhaps this Aeronaut would know some tidbit. There was always a chance. And whether she did have something or not, perhaps she would seek a job with her. It was certainly better than biding her time in the heart of the Company...
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