Fortnightly Writing Competition: Steampunk (Results)

[Sinitrena]

Steampunk

We are in a new decade, so let's see what we can do with the technology of a few decades ago.

According to Wikipedia, Steampunk is a retrofuturistic subgenre of science fiction or science fantasy that incorporates technology and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery.

And that is exactly what I would like you to write this round. There are no limits on what kind of story you want to tell, but it must be set in a steam-powered technology world. And because this is the topic this time around, I expect some nice descriptions of your world.

As always, you have two weeks to finish your story.

[Mandle]

Nevermind my original comment. I was grouchy.

[Stupot]

Perhaps I could revisit the world I started to create the last time Steampunk came up as a topic.
https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=54116.msg636548611#msg636548611

I promise that if I do it will actually have a plot this time.

[Mandle]

The Taste Of Brass

The taste of brass is the first taste I can remember. It will always bring back to me fond memories.

I often suck on a brass Doublet while I wait in line to pay for my daily allotment of milk and bean curd to feed my family with from the slot, just for the comfort it brings me.

The memory of this taste, as I know now, goes back to the industrial paradise of our post-revolution state.

So many of us suckled on the overhead conveyors of brass-nipple-fed milk on the factory lines above our caged cradles, and then were raised in the identical school-room with no doors and no bells by the automaton teacher before us with the copper-mesh mouth blatting out our lessons and the electric shock-cane direct to the seat of our chairs whenever we might glance away or nod off.

And then expelled, slotted, into military training, by our, or rather in my case, by my trainer, Bertha301, a hulking vehicle of hissing bulk and wheels, that I suspect , now, had humans within, although I had never seen another, shouting at me through copper-mesh speakers to "Pick up the weapon", "Aim the weapon", "Fire the weapon", over and over, always firing at cutouts of human forms, even though I had never seen another.

Then came the graduation day of abduction into a coffin of mother-smelling metal under the cot I slept in and the jittery rush of transport to be propped-up, handed my gun by metal arms, and dispelled onto a real battlefield of rushing, hissing chassis of gleaming bronze and silver, some on wheels, some on treads that pealed over and over the first dirt I had ever seen.

And then, through the smoke, came the human forms I had only ever seen as cutouts and I fired my weapon of spitting fire and metal at them just like I had been told to do.

And then a spitting gun of metal and fire from one of them tore through my abdomen and I fell.

Steam poured from the triple-chimneys of an enemy battle-chassis as it tore over me, its treads missing me on both sides, and I was buried in its wake.

The mud flowed over me, steading the flow of blood from my abdomen, and the world was gone for me.

Birthed from the earth of the battlefield, I was pulled out by enemy soldiers, and carried by their sweat and strain and stretchers to their surgical tables and repaired.

I was fed by brass-nippled feeds on a vast machine which resembled, as I only know now, an octopus.

The war continued until it didn't anymore and, in the time in between, I recovered and learned and learned and learned.

Now I live back in my homeland, with my wife and my children and I try to teach them all I learned but most of my time I work when I can and suck on a brass Doublet whenever I line up for food and stuff.

I find it comforting.

[Ess2s2]

2020. It was already here.

Only a few short days ago, the night air was thick with haze as the town horns sounded and the crowd chanted in the new year. As the long, wavering notes rolled across the city, rattling wooden catwalks and resonating in the people's chests, a buzzing jubilation seemed to invigorate the citizens gathered in the city square. Young men and women kissed and danced, their coattails and skirts flapping madly as they frolicked and spun each other over the cobbles. Children chased one another in the streets, threading between draft horses and opulent, steam-powered automotives alike.

Old men sat in a tight clutch under the shadow of a ruined building, their upturned faces illuminated by exotic electric light and the powderworks in the sky. The building had been an old factory, destroyed early on in the Pan-Oceanic Wars, one of many that had shared the same fate. Its jagged skeleton of burned beams and crumbled walls tangled madly with the broken pipes and ruined machinery within. Though other factories had been rebuilt--newer and more automated than before--this, the former Taggart-Smythe Canvasworks remained a ruin; a grim testament to the price folks had paid for a peaceful, modern life. Many of the old men had worked there in their younger days, pulling and cutting canvas, stretching it over wooden and steel frames to make all manner of product. Some of the men reminisced over those days as they sat near the disheveled remains of the building, watching the colorful bursts in the air above.

Now, less than a week later, I sat in my office, looking out the window at the lazy columns of steam rising up from so many rooftop vents. The new year's celebration seemed so far away, like a place out of time. The tone had been one of celebration so frenetic, it was nearly a sort of hysteria, a seeming sigh of relief breathed out at the signing of the last treaty of the wars. The end of the wars had also brought new discoveries from distant lands, which were their own cause for celebration. The Eastern Islands had unveiled new alchemical combinations, turning already impressive gunpowder and the like into even more powerful forms. New Columbia's surrender had brought miraculous electrical light to halls and laboratories across our land, amazing and inspiring any who gazed upon it. Unfortunately, as tantalizing as those discoveries were, they were also expensive for the average citizen, and so such luxuries were reserved for exhibits and novelties of the wealthy.

For the rest of us, with the passing of the celebration came the return of boring, everyday life. Steam hisses out of every fitting, oozes out of every crack. The salty, earthy smell of the water from the nearby ocean, filtered, heated, compressed, heated again, and finally sent to every home and business in the city. Saturated steam power. The lifeblood of our city, for better or worse.

All at once, the light whistle and harmonic chime of the viaspeak pulled me out of my reverie. I picked up the handset and opened the vent.

"Hello?" I intoned, raising my voice slightly.

"hi there my dear verran, how are you today?" Johnson's voice was raised, as if calling across a wide dinner hall, yet what issued from the vent along with puffs of steam was flat and tinny. Johnson's voice, which had a rich, booming quality in person, was barely a whisper once it had passed through the communication pipes snaking along the rooftops. As he paused, waiting for me to respond, I could hear the ghosts of other conversations in the pipes. Johnson had told me once it was the switchboard itself resonating from a thousand simultaneous connections at over ten-thousand psi. I figured myself wise to believe him, Johnson was the smartest fellow I knew.

"Ah! Johnson! I'm well! Good to hear from you old friend! To what do I owe the pleasure?!" I nearly yelled. There had been a time when we could speak normally through the viaspeak, and it was as if talking to someone right beside you. However, since the wars and the few years of slapdash work to patch as many of the damaged pipes as possible, it was only a step or two better than simply opening your shutters and screaming across town. Granted, it was still a step or two better in that regard, and so we made do.

"verran, i need you here at your earliest convenience. i've something incredible to show you." The vent puffed back. My interest was piqued. Johnson was a tinkerer--a well-connected one at that--and had first told me about electrical lights when an associate of his got a delivery from the capitol for use in their laboratory. Johnson's voice couldn't hide a certain note of glee whenever he got close to something big, and I heard it in him now. Still with glee stitched in his throat, he urged. "how soon can you get out?"

"I've got one last affair to put in order for the day, and then I'm free to leave." Some didn't take the job of a pump clerk seriously, but it was my pen that allowed the coastal shipments to travel inland or the capitol shipments to land on our city's dock. Even if most of those bills of lading were "REDACTED" for the war efforts and the crates sealed against tampering. Most of the lines for the steam locomotives had been damaged, but it made my job no less busy as I struggled to route engineers and their shipments along the undamaged mains that still connected the cities.

"perfect!" Johnson's voice rattled through the vent "ring up when you get here!"

*

As I walked along the street, I passed shops and apartments alike, some run-down and battered by the war, usually hastily patched back together with whatever steel and stone was on hand. Exposed steam pipes had been repaired with whatever was around, resulting in looping, hissing networks of bronze and copper snaking across the faces of many of the structures. Many of the destroyed shops gave way to alleys crammed with orphaned shopkeepers and ramshackle markets that found ways to harness and share a damaged pipe to heat their food or operate their machinery. Some shopkeeps would rebuild, but many others abandoned their damaged buildings, and others would move in as best they could amid the rubble and abandoned outlets. Almost all of these alley markets harbored foreigners, and it was rumored there was a healthy black market to be found there, complete with practitioners of magic, such as it was. I never gave to such silliness of course, no one had ever seen any magic outside of a kid's show, and it was a common theme in fable books read to babes before they went to sleep at night.

The shops gave way to homes, packed tightly together along a narrow lane. Each home had what could only be charitably called a yard, with the majority of the front real-estate taken up by steam mains sprouting out of the concrete (or dropping down from the rooftops) before diving into the front of the house to whichever destination they were intended. Each pipe had a large valve, and each valve was locked with a tag for that particular service. As I looked up the length of the street toward Johnson's house, a steam automotive passed by, the muted chug-hiss sound of the air pistons first growing larger then fading as the 'motive rounded a corner and was gone. Many of the homes were well kept, and it was obvious this area of the city had suffered very little damage, and the residents here struggled quite a bit less as a result.

As I approached Johnson's house, a strange feeling of unease came over me. Everything seemed well in order, but as I came closer to the front of the house, something inside was running, or broken. A long, squealing clank came from inside, one that repeated, like a wheel turning against its will. My feeling of unease slid wholeheartedly into dread as I tried the gate and found it unlocked. The clank from within the house was accompanied by the hiss of runaway steam, and as I pushed the front door open, my stomach sank to see the interior in complete disarray. Johnson's tall, orderly stacks of books on science and engineering and the like had been toppled over, with tomes and pages scattered all about the wooden floor. The tables and chairs in the main room had been toppled, and chests of drawers had been ransacked. Many of Johnson's smaller inventions and designs lay broken on the floor. As I picked my way into the kitchen, the clanking sound became deafening, and I finally found the source; a steam-powered dish washing contraption of Johnson's making that had been damaged beyond recognition. Gears squealed against damaged parts, urged endlessly on by a shot of steam. The cabinets above were all open, some so violently, the doors had been torn from their hinges. Dishes and dry goods lay shattered and crushed on the floor, the counters a similar sight. I stepped gingerly out of the ruined kitchen and crept my way upstairs, where Johnson was known to spend most of his waking hours.

The scene in Johnson's workshop was even more dire, with flasks of chemicals shattered everywhere, tools and small steam mechanicals strewn every which direction, and shelves upended, their former contents a scrabbled mess on the stained wooden floor. I searched for any sign of Johnson himself, and could find none, good nor bad. As I turned to leave, wondering over my next step, a bit of motion caught my eye through the nearby window. A bit of paper had been caught between the shutters and was catching on the breeze outside. I made my way to the window and tugged at the paper, freeing it from the shutters. My stomach did a strange flip as I unfolded the paper and read what was written:

"Verran,

Worry not, for I am safe. I'm not far, and I'll find you when the time is right. For now, you must hurry to the place we played in as boys. I've hidden something there that I need you to keep safe.

Tell no one. Call no one.

-J."

I folded the paper and stuffed it into my jacket pocket before taking one last look at the room and hurrying downstairs.

*

It was getting dark as I approached the old alleyway where Johnson and I had roamed as boys. Back in that time, it was a wonderous, twisted passage behind the shops and homes of grown-ups, a forgotten place except to us and other children who darted around corners and ducked under steam pipes, finding hidden crannies tucked away within the maze of fittings, valves, and brickwork. Now, as I stood before it, it was another alley taken over by the homeless and unscrupulous marketeers, teeming with lantern light and beady eyes waiting to strike a deal across the table. Suspicious eyes watched me and foreign tongues chattered nervously as I made my way slowly through the winding path of tables and merchants that trailed further and further into the alley.

"HEY YOU!" A hand grabbed me just as the voice yelled to my left. I recoiled, only to see someone from a place across the ocean, motioning at a blanket covered with stone carvings. "YOU BUY SOMETHING? YOU LIKE SOMETHING?" I looked past them and saw some small children--younger than myself when I had run through the alley with Johnson--huddled near a lantern, sharing a blanket and eating something roasted on a stick, no doubt from one of the other merchants. I turned my attention back to the man in front of me, waved my hand no, and started to walk away. Before I could get more than a few steps, my conscience had gotten the better of me and I turned back with some coins in hand. The man's face brightened immediately, and he offered me a small, green carving of a man. It was attached to a delicate gold chain and the carvings had been etched with a staggering precision. I took it and nodded my thanks before continuing into the alley.

All at once, I came upon a small intersection where the alley split. Both directions harbored more tightly packed market stands, but just off to my right was what I was there for, a third split in the alley that was too tangled with pipes and mains for any adult to walk. The pathway was covered by a grate and set up in front of it was a small table selling exotic fruit. The frail little woman who stood behind the table smiled. I pointed beyond her at the path. She turned, looked at the path, turned, looked at her fruit, and smiled at me. I once again pointed at the path. She frowned for a moment, then pointed at me, smiled, then motioned at the fruit. I reached once again into my pocket, and the old woman's smile brightened. I pointed at the coins in my hand, then at the path behind her. Her eyes lit up and she nodded while holding out her hands. I inwardly thanked myself for bringing money as I dropped the coins in the woman's hand with a soft clink. Quick as a flash, she stepped aside and watched as I pulled the grating back and slipped through into the crowded passage.

I slowly made my way through the passage, working around tarnished pipes, badly worn fittings, leaking valves, and thrumming saturated steam mains. The brick and metal walls were close in on me, and through them I could hear faint echoes of life; laughter, fights, steam mechanicals for the businesses humming along, all in a muted symphony of man living out his days. Finally, I came upon Johnson and I's old place, a burst pressure vessel that was too nested back in the alley to be removed when it failed, and the protective tangle of twisted and rusted pipes surrounding it. I threaded my way carefully to the back where the tank opened with a huge, weathered scar and peered inside. Within was a sheet of burlap, tied with rope around a bulbous shape. Pinned to the mysterious package was a note, scrawled hurriedly in Johnson's hand.

"My friend, I hope you find this before they do.

This is going to rewrite history.

Get it out of the city, I know you can.

BE CAREFUL WITH IT!

-J."

As I untied the rope, the burlap fell away to show a strange metal and wood contraption. It was shaped much like a flintlock rifle, and in fact I recognized some of the parts, but much of it was strange, with metallic canisters, strange wires, and pressure gauges intersecting one another. One side had a lever, and the entire assembly had tubes and wires going to a pack. A set of dark goggles was tucked into a pocket on the pack with another note: "Wear these!" it read. I tucked the goggles in my breast pocket, slipped the pack over my shoulders, and slung the contraption into a loop hanging from the pack. I was able to barely cover the contraption at my hip with my peacoat, but it looked as though I was smuggling a large ferret. I figured it was the best I could do for now, and started making my way back to the market.

As I came closer to the grate with the old woman, I saw her speaking with a couple of thin, pale men. They wore dark suits and constantly looked around them, as if they expected to be pounced upon at any moment. Their mustaches were tightly trimmed and their collars were turned up high against an imaginary wind. I realized as they spoke that it wasn't the common tongue, but the woman's own language. They spoke quickly, with a clipped voice that sounded much like nails on a chalkboard. The woman shook her head, and as she did, one of the pale men looked past her and caught sight of me. I had barely registered this when without words, the other looked my way, pulled out a pistol, and fired a shot. The bullet punctured a pipe near my head and all at once the space filled with hot steam. I scurried back, my skin growing hot from the rapidly expanding vapor and scrabbled to cover around a corner. I could hear the men prying at the gate and the old woman yelling at them. I pushed away from the corner and heard another shot ring out, but I thought better of trying to look back to see if they were reloading. I ambled steadily along the cramped alleyway, past the old pressure vessel, and into a part of the alley I had rarely gone. By the sounds of it, the men hadn't followed me through the scalding hot steam and I chanced a quick break. I once again considered my new gadget and saw the levers, knobs, and switches were numbered. A small pressure knob was labeled "1". As I turned the knob, a small gauge on the side rose into the green. "2" and "3" were small silver switches that when flipped, turned on some small electrical lights. The lever on the one side was "4", and once I pulled that back, the contraption came alive. An impossible blue light came from the very end, and it made a deep rumbling crackle that was as exciting as it was unsettling. The pack slung over my back vibrated softly, and it made a soft whirring like I'd never heard before. The only other control was the old flintlock trigger, and I had a feeling I knew what that did. I returned the switches and knobs to their original positions, holstered my new flintlock, and continued to the furthest end of the alley. I needed to find Johnson.

*

As I navigated my way through the last few pipes in the dark alleyway, I found myself emerging next to the seaside, near one of the old docks used to send our war machines to the front overseas years ago. It had long since been abandoned in favor of one of the many docks closer to the heart of the city, and now stood in disrepair. The glowing streetlamps barely illuminated the edge overlooking the water. The moon above cast a bluish light on anything the lamps couldn't reach. As I walked toward the street, a 'motive came to a halt in front of me and a thin, pale man stepped out.

"Give me the weapon." he demanded. His eyes were dark, and aside from his mustache, he had no hair. No eyebrows, no sideburns, not even chin stubble. His suit was so dark and spotless, it seemed to absorb any light that hit it. It almost felt as if the lamplight refused to go near him. He took a step forward. "Give me the weapon. Now."

I dashed to the left, and felt his hand clutching at my peacoat. As I ran, I twisted myself in an effort to get free of my coat, which the man now had a deathgrip on. As I turned to free my arm, I saw the man reach into his coat and produce his pistol. I swiped mindlessly at his arm as he leveled the pistol at me and felt the gun go off as I heard an angry lead ball whizz by my ear. I was nearly free of my right arm and gave one last, hard yank. The man stumbled with my coat in his arms as I turned and ran as fast as my legs could take me. I could hear the steam 'motive turning around to come after me. I grabbed my newfangled flintlock out of its sling and turned the knob. Another shot rang out as I flipped the two switches. The men were yelling at one other in a language I had never heard, and the automotive was getting closer. I yanked the lever as I rounded on the approaching horde of men, and suddenly recalled that I hadn't put on the goggles. I squeezed my eyes shut as I pulled the trigger and the deep crackle became a snarling roar as the weapon thrummed unnaturally in my hands. Behind my eyelids, I saw flashes of light, filtered into a reddish-orange blur by the gossamer skin over my eyes. I let go of the trigger and the weapon quieted in my hands. I no longer heard yells or the rumble of the 'motives air pistons, instead there was a deathly quiet punctuated by a heavy dripping sound. As I opened my eyes, I saw the melted, twisted remains of the steam automotive, some places still glowing orange hot and dripping slag onto the cobbles below. The men lay motionless on the ground, charred and burning, one of their hats a few feet away, slowly licking flame on the street. I looked beyond the flaming wreckage at the old government dock. Many of the dock boards were now broken and charred, the tops of the wooden piles glowing red with fresh embers. I surveyed the damage before me, whatever it was that came out of the front of the weapon, it wasn't traditional fire, it was something...much more devastating. I quickly stowed the weapon as best I could and headed for the pumpyards, I needed to get out of the city, and fast.

[Baron]

I'm having... an... idea! 

[Baron]

Glade Runner

   Birchday, the 12th of Drizzlember.  Another hard day on the beat.  Of course they're all hard days.  Our culture dictates that.  But most of us get to tinker the endless hours away blissfully absorbed  in mechanical challenges.  Not us in the Civil Patrol Guard, though.  Someone's gotta keep order on the mean streets while the rest of society does its thing.  No one ever said being a beaver was easy, but I tell you us grunts in the CPG have it rougher than most.

   Let's start with the long hard days that pile up like a log jam in the spring thaw.  You'd think a challenge like that would be appealing to my folk.  Endless toil as the inbox overflows like a poorly designed dike.  But we're not labouring or crafting away happily here.  This is ugly work that we do.  We're not built to hunt criminals down like carnivores, or shoot up rabies zombies, or grind out long slow hours of idle surveillance.  It kind of gnaws at you, like the slow scrape of incisors on hardwood, this marriage of busy working hours with unnatural activity.  Its enough to make some CPG guys eventually snap like twigs in a windstorm.

   Take old Gunderbrook, former detective inspector for the eighth precinct.  He just went crazier than a star-nosed mole at a dirt party.  Now he's tethered to a tattler bird on a make-work line down in the crazy dam, tailed bound up front-wise like a diaper in case he starts losing his shit again.  Those doctor nuts down there probably have him on a busy regimen of dogwood pills and sage injections, interspersed with some old-fashioned quality time in the paddle-whacking chair to try and bore some sense back into him.  It's a sad story, I know, but it gets sadder.  Guess who had to take his place?

   Now the deputy chief is staring me down in his office, a dowel of flavoured poplar poking out the side of his squidgy pinched face.  I can't tell if he's angry or trying to take a shit on his fancy maple swivel chair.  The wooden pressure pipe along the wall rattles before an oak canister shoots out.  The deputy chief removes the birch-bark message, continues to frown or press his bowel movement, before returning to the file on his desk.

   "We don't have a name," he barks at me.  "Only a pseudonym: The Seep Master."

   "Undermining the dam of society?" I guess.

   "Something like that," the deputy chief sneers.  "He's running some kind of social deviance ring called White Mist down in the Alder Slum.  We got whispers and suspected collaborators, but everyone's too scared to talk.  Gunderbrook had a list of names in his notes," he pushes a piece of birch-bark over to me, "but didn't communicate any new leads before he fell off the water trolley."

   I look down at the list, squinting at the cramped writing in the pale light of the office's glow-worm lamp.  There are eight names, and the top seven are scratched out.  "So you want me to track down one Amelia Tricklebright, and through her the Seep Master?" I ask.

   "I want you to bring 'em in," the deputy chief growls.  "Question if you can, but get them off the street.  Article Seven applies, so no notes except the standard paperwork.  If they run, you are authorized to use lethal force.  Understand?"

   "Yes sir," I reply, tucking the birch-bark into my coat.

   "Gunderbrook brought in the seventh name on the list three days ago, right before he snapped," the deputy chief tells me as I turn to leave.  "Goes by the name of Smacktail.  He's still down in holding.  A real piece of work.  Start with questioning him, then find the others.  And Sawstorm?"

   "Yeah?" I ask, turning back from leaving.

   "Be careful what you believe on this one.  This kinda thing can mess with your head."

      *   *   *   *   *

   "Detective Sawstorm?" the bullfrog asks, eyeing me up and down.

   "That's what it says," I tell him, taking back my new badge.  There was still sawdust in the small "e" holes where the carvers had chewed in the word detective.

   "Who'd you piss off to get a crummy job like that?" the frog asked, eyes blinking separately.

   "My fourth form hydraulics teacher," I replied.  The frog buzzes me through the main gate down in holding, waving me to follow.  We walk down a long hallway with flickering lightning bug lamps strung along the ceiling.

   "Has the suspect said anything?" I ask.

   "Prisoner 14-8034.  One Augustus Smacktail.  Doesn't say much, except with his claws.  Here's the file," the bullfrog says.

   "Great," I mutter, following the bullfrog into the interrogation room.  There's a great fat blob of beaver tied to the room's only chair, one leg nothing but a wooden peg below the knee, a reed-weft sack over his head.  "Smacktail?" I ask by way of introduction, shaking the room's glow-worm lamp to shine the maximum intensity of light on the prisoner.

   "Who's there?" he asks with a tough slum accent, the head sack shifting to search for the source of my voice.  I rip the sack off to reveal a grizzled old blob of a face, white in the whiskers, and a missing eye in the middle of one vicious looking scar across his face.  "Ah.  New detective, eh?  What happened to the old guy?  Blunderbrook?"

   "I'm taking over the case," I say.  "Now tell me about White Mist."

   "I want a law-owl," he says, his bottom lip seeming to not quite shut right.  "I know my rights."

   "You don't, actually," I reply.  "You're an Article Seven prisoner.  Do you know what that means?"

   "I'm special?" the fat old beaver asks, chuckling.

   "It means forest law doesn't apply.  This is an internal beaver matter.  That means the old law is invoked.  You're an old beaver, Mr. Smacktail.  You should be familiar with the old law?"

   The fat prisoner swallows visibly, but then straightens in the chair.  "You Paddy Runners don't scare me," he spat.  "You think you can use your old laws to keep the old order running?  But I've spent my life working on old machines.  You can plug in new cogs to replace the old ones, but sooner or later the whole thing's gonna break down.  You ain't nothing but a new cog in a system of rot."

   "Is that so?" I ask absently, leafing through the file.  "It says here you're a pneumatic engineer.  Sounds like a lot of hot air to me."

   "Laugh all you want," he grumbled.  "Pneumatics runs the world now, don't it?  The old flumes are leaking, and the waterwheels split.  Now everything's going to air pressure.  What do you think pulled the spider-silk rope in the elevator that brought you down here?  Or turns the paddle-wheel in your water trolleys?  Even beaver society can drag itself out of the old ways if it's convenient enough."

   "I don't think that much about it," I say.  "And I don't think you're very happy with pneumatics, either.  Isn't that right, Smacktail?  I think you've moved on to something else.  Something bigger and better.  What do you say about that?"

   Smacktail gets really quiet all of a sudden, like I hit a nerve or something.  "Where's Tricklebright?" I ask.  "Where's the Seep Master?  Where's White Mist hanging out these days?  Huh?"  I give him a little poke to get the words flowing, but the grizzled old beaver won't budge.

   "You know how pneumatics work, don't ya?" he asks at length, glaring at me like a caged weasel.  "You plunge white water down a shaft into an air-tight chamber.  The water flows out the exhaust pipe, but the air floats up to get caught in the chamber.  More water tumbles in trapping more bubbles, squeezing them into an ever smaller space, cranking up the pressure.  We tap the top of that chamber to drive our kit, but sometimes there's too much pressure and too much air.  The pressure bubble creeps down to the level of the water exhaust pipe until suddenly the pressure is vented, and KAPOW!  You get a blowout.  You don't want to be on the other end of that pipe when the pressure blows.  Now we the people, we're the bubbles, and you society enforcers are the water that just keeps pressing and pressing and pressing us down.  But someday soon the pressure is going to cause a  blowout, and I hope you're around to feel the spray, Detective."

   It's then that I notice a strange patch on Smacktail's right arm.  At first it looked like another scar, but this one was much wider, and the skin within bubbled like otter vomit.  "Hey Smacktail," I ask impulsively, "you been playing with fire?"

   "I want my LAW-OWL!" was all he would say after that.

      *   *   *   *   *

   Now I'm down on the streets of the Alder Slum.  Flagstone paving keeps the street from turning to mud under the feet of a hundred species of riffraff, but here and there it's been pulled up for the convenience of a wildcat mosquito breeder or flower presser.  The buildings are all beaver built dam-towers between six and eight storeys high, so old the wood is black with age and the buildings sagging against each other.  The old power flumes run between the buildings and over the street, criss-crossing at various levels, some dripping but most derelict between the web of newfangled pneumatic hose.  Foreign music and musky smells float through the streets like mist on an autumn morning.  I am not afraid as long as I keep one hand on the pneumatic dart pistol tucked into my coat pocket.

   Smacktail might not have revealed any specifics about White Mist, but he told me enough.  Disenchanted anti-socials bent on bringing down the Beaverwealth, as far as I could reckon.  CPG command likes to keep the specifics on this sort of thing quiet so as not to give people ideas, but what cop hadn't heard rumours of fire-dabblers and worse?  My plan now was to wander through the crowded streets and watering holes of the Alder Slum like a snow-bird tourist, looking for interesting scars.

   Part of me wondered what I would do if I did find an incriminating patch of skin.  I've been on the force for fifteen years now, and I'm as good as any at towing the line.  But I'm not going to say that I like it.  If I'd been born on the other side of the moose-crap mound it could easily be me sitting in Smacktail's chair.  Pneumatics was a big deal when I was a kid: it brought down the old waterworks monopoly that used to run this town.  I remember the protests, the clashes in the streets, the fear and anger unleashed like a hungry water snake.  Society got a big shake up, but I don't know if that event did me any favours.  Could another roll of the dice make me any worse off?

   But the sad fact was that it could.  Smacktail might bluster on about a brave new world after the great revolution, but he was for all his gruffness just a doe-eyed idealist.  He might have beat me in a fourth form hydraulics test, but he obviously never studied hard in material history.  Where would society be without the CPG and its overarching governing apparatus?  Not whizzing around in water trolleys or up elevators, eating delicate imported barks and wetland roots.  No, we'd be back to marking out 2 acre territories with urine-soaked mud mounds, clawing each other's eyes out for the right to scratch out a pittance from the land.  Beaverkind was stronger in a larger society, but that society had to be governed to stay cohesive.  Subversive elements were therefore our collective enemy.  Well, probably.

   My internal debate was interrupted by a young beaverling strutting down the street, shaved to the skin like a bald rat except for a shock of dyed fur on the top of her head, nine-tenths naked except for a dozen piercings and a road map of tattoos carpeting her body.  "Looking for a good time, honey cakes?" she asked, revealing the wad of spruce gum she was chewing.

   "Where does a fellah go for a hot party around here?" I ask, trying to casually scope out the skin texture under all of her tattoos.  Nature's womb, she was showing a lot of skin!

   "What turns your crank?" she asked, waving her hips a bit to give me a better view.

   "Heat," I tell her.  "I like it scorching like a summer day.  I'm also into rough scars and rougher ladies."  Hopefully I didn't go too far there, but the young beaver seemed unruffled by my request.  It was probably not the weirdest fetish she'd heard of this evening, I suppose.

   "You wanna talk to Wanda down in at the Gurgle Dock," she says.  "They like it hot enough to cook an egg down there."

   "Not the Gurgle Dock," I protest.  "Doesn't Amelia work down there?  I can't stand her."

   "You're older than you look," the young lady sassed me.  "Amelia's been at the Dime Pit for years."

   I thanked my unwitting informant and continued to wend my way through the crowded streets.  Past the Pelt Pot and the Toad Hopper, the Skunk & Funk and the Pheasant Plucker.  Down into the depths of the Alder Slum, where the buildings that weren't run down were vacant or half-collapsed.  Here the mammals were mangy and the amphibians plentiful.  Burly raccoons sparred with rabbit mushroom addicts, and drunken porcupines caroused with greased up skunks.  Here and there you'd see an opossum pulling some pouch tricks or an otter trying to deal illicit fermented fish.  And all of them were half-shaved like French poodles, and what fur remained was often dyed the gaudiest colours imaginable.

   There were beavers too, of course, but not your fine-upstanding-citizen types.  These beavers looked edgier than normal, draped with chains and piercings, their fur dyed and shaved like the rest.  These were the outcasts of society, the fourth form drop-outs, the lazy, the unbalanced, and the outright crazies.  Some were unemployed, but others were over-employed in the anti-social arts of crime or quackery.  If the Civil Patrol Guard was a valve on the pipe of society, this end of the slum was the leak that subverted it. 

   At last I stand in front of the Dime Pit, it's heavy wooden doors seemingly cobbled together from wood salvaged from the surrounding buildings.  As the door opens and closes with the coming and going of a clientèle as varied and grotesque as the imagination could conger,  I see an artificial mist seeping out, lit all colours of the rainbow by tinted lightning bug lamps.  The puddles in the street where the flagstones have been removed pulse with the vibrations of a heavy base line.  My hand tightens around the pneumatic dart gun in my pocket, then I enter.

   The Dime Pit I soon discover is a watering hole in name only.  Water mixed with pneumatics cloak a churning crowd in a surreal fog as they dance to the most industrial music I've ever heard.  Lights flash in such a way as to suspend reality every second, so that my progress through the crowd seems like just a series of semi-continuous sketches.  Bizarre caricatures of nature bound, dance, and grope each other in a trance-like state.  The whole place smells like a methane swamp mixed with... is that woodsmoke?  I try to peer through the pulsing haze, but the special effects have turned the room into a boundless world of ear-shattering unrealness.

   "Hey!  Watch it buddy!" A pile of spiky piercings attached to a fox gives me a shove before returning to make out with his plucked and tattooed goose girlfriend.  I try to reorient myself.  The street meat told me Amelia would be working here, whatever that entailed.  Maybe I should go ask at the bar? 

   Then I look up and see a most unnatural silhouette dancing above the crowd on a pedestal.  It moves sensually, entrancing the hundreds of admirers aping her every move.  But while they were parodies of natural animals this silhouette was a world beyond nature.  Her whole left arm was missing, replaced by a skeletal mechanical device.  The outline of tubes snake around it and into her shaved body implying that the mechanisms within were run from the pressure of her own blood.  Her shaved head was likewise half-enveloped in a device that was half-wood, half-shell, with enough blood tubes twisting out of it to suggest a wild shock of hair.  As I push my way closer through the crowd I can see that her head prosthetic had pieces that spun and pulsed, especially a lens that covered her right eye.  I now see that her face is painted like a doll's, only the sweat from dancing had caused the paint to run so that she resembled nothing less than a melting, half-skeletal demon.  Almost as an aftershock I notice that her right leg was in fact that of a duck, grafted onto her body with massive and seemingly permanent stitches.

   But even a few paces away I can not make out what I truly seek: burn marks under the rash of gyrating tattoos.  At that moment the creature flips over and begins to roll on her belly like a worm, to the great enjoyment of the crowd.  The impressive move is mooted a moment later as her face at the pedestal level is suddenly at the same level as mine, standing full-height above the floor.  I knew I stood out like a sore thumb in that exotic crowd, and the flash of recognition that instantly unites both the melted doll face and the bionic head prosthetic tells me I've been made.  "Amelia Tricklebright?!?" I shout, but she's already jumping to the next pedestal over, knocking off some kind of Siamese-fused ferret twins.  Looks like I found my gal.

   What happens next seems to play out slowly, like we were dancing underwater, but it might have just been a trick of the flashy lighting.  I draw my pneumatic dart gun and fire, but the bionic creature seems to flit faster than my darts every time the pulsing light blinks.  Madly I push through the crowd after her, but the dancing denizens shove back, suddenly aware of what is happening.  Desperately I grab at a pneumatic hose strung under the dance pedestals, ripping it free of its coupler and turning it on the crowd, which is suddenly doused in the hissing roar of a pressure breech.  They fall back, falling over each other, creating a writhing mass of panic and confusion, and I take the opportunity to clamber over them to the nearest patch of open floor. 

   Animals are running this way and that now, but I can still see my quarry scaling a ladder to a catwalk that is barely visible above the fog.  I aim my gun as I run and let loose several more darts, one of which sticks uselessly in her wooden bionic arm.  She turns briefly to glare in my direction, then continues her ascent.

   Now I'm on the ladder too, climbing as fast as my middle-aged limbs will allow considering I'm trying to carry a gun at the same time.  Suddenly someone grabs my leg from below, and I turn to see a shaved skunk with butterfly wings howling murderously up at me.  I lower the gun and pull the trigger, but I've spent my dart cartridge.  SMACK!  My tail strikes him upside the head and he falls to the ground, senseless.  But I've lost precious moments now, and can barely make out the silhouette of the bionic beaver racing down the catwalk above me. 

   Eventually I make it to the catwalk and reload.  Then I sprint down its length, clamber through a hole bored in the old dam-weave structure and emerge onto an old, dry flume that now serves as a rickety bridge across an alley to another, seemingly vacant old building.  As I approach I can hear what sounds like a blue jay's warning call, only much more shrill and industrial sounding.  I can't see any entrance that Amelia might have used, but I'm pretty sure I've found the hornet's nest anyway.  I throw myself at the nearest boarded up window  and burst through the rotting planks into the building.

   My first impression is that despite appearances I have crashed into another dance club because the vacant building is shaking with a heavy, mechanical beat.  But as my eyes adjust to the pale lighting I see that I have arrived on a wooden walkway over some kind of massive machine.  Great gears whirl and pistons smash, and I quickly realize that this machine is far too vast to be driven by the gauge of pneumatic hoses running through this part of town.  The smell of woodsmoke here is overwhelming, and the heat is particularly intense up where I am.  The machine unexpectedly shoots out an intense burst of scalding fog, and  I am reminded of the strange, bubbly burn-scar on Smacktail's arm.  And over all the din and noise there's that shrill warning caw, whistling repeatedly and echoing through the old building like a thunderous waterfall turned to air and forced repeatedly through a giant flute.

   A flit of movement down the walkway draws my attention.  It is an ancient looking beaver, leaning on a cane, wearing a top hat and one giant monocle.  Impulsively I shoot at him, but a shiny grate slams shut between us, causing the darts to bounce harmlessly away.  "Seep Master!" I shout, trying to determine the old beaver's identity, and he tips his hat at me as he begins to rise on an old elevator.  I race to the stairs next to the elevator shaft, but on the third step I crash through the rotten plank, nearly plunging to my death.  Carefully I start to climb again, but more slowly this time, testing the footing as I go.  As I climb the heat becomes unbearable, but the noise begins to recede somewhat, so that I can now hear shouting above me. 

   "It's so nice of you to finally join us, Detective Sawstorm."  The calm voice permeates everywhere despite the noise of the building, broadcast as if by a giant speaking horn.  I try to ascertain the direction that it comes from, but it seems to be coming from everywhere all at once.  How is that possible?  And how does he know my name?  I continue my slow and steady climb, and the voice continues it's calm monologue: "You are too late to stop us, you know.  Once the water is out of the dam there is no stopping the flood.  You may succeed in wrecking our prototype, but know-how is a disease for which you will find no cure.  Change is coming, Detective Sawstorm.  The age of steam is coming.  The revolution is coming for you, Sawstorm.  We.  Are.  Coming."   

   I emerge onto the top level of the building and quickly dive back into the stairwell, narrowly avoiding a pair of gun darts.  I lean out and loose a few of my own in the direction of the shots, but there is no target there, save for an open door.  I aim carefully at the door for when my aggressor pokes his head out again.  "Seep Master!"  I shout, trying to goad a response, but there is no sound or movement from the corridor.  Slowly I begin to creep towards the open door, gun ready, every nerve strained to sense the slightest indication of my foe.  But I reach the door without incident, discovering that it leads to another rickety staircase, this one leading to the roof.

   As I emerge onto the roof I see the Seep Master ensconced within a bizarre winged beast, half-bird, half-machine.  He waves his jaunty wave at me, and then the wings begin to flap.  I loose some darts at the biological part of the contraption, hoping somehow to stun them into aborting his escape, but suddenly the gun is knocked out of my hand by a plank of wood.  I spin to face my foe and narrowly avoid catching the plank right in the face by rolling left.  I look up to see the bionic wrath of Amelia standing over me, and over her shoulder the beastly contraption launching itself into the air, causing the building to lurch forebodingly.  Suddenly the roof gives way beneath me and I drop through three storeys of rotten timbers to dangle precariously over the great steam-driven machine.

   Amelia jumps down after me, plank still in hand, although why she didn't just use her mechanical wooden arm as a weapon I don't know.  Planks and timber begin to fall and crash, and I realize that we have only moments to make our escape before the whole building comes down on us.

   "What the hell are you doing?!?" I shout, trying to get a good grip on the beam that's creaking under my weight.  I grab at a second adjacent beam, but it snaps causing me to almost fall into the noisy, steam-belching abyss.  "We're both going to die in here!"

   "The revolution doesn't need any witnesses, Detective Sawstorm!" she shouts at me over the menacing din.  "At least not yet!" 

   Now she is standing directly above me, plank raised to finish the job.  She swings down, but another lurch in the unstable structure causes her to miss.  I grab instinctively for her arm, but come away instead with the dart that I had shot there back at the Dime Pit.  I lunge again, this time stabbing her duck foot with the dart, stapling her to the beam she is standing on.  The building lurches once again, causing the beam to break at one end.  She is now dangling beneath me by her stapled foot, even as the collapsing geometry of the building gives me a new footing of temporary security.

   "Grab my hand!" I shout.  She screams at me, though whether in pain or rage I cannot tell.  She leans up with all her dancer's abdominal strength, grasping at the dart that pins her.  I grab her mechanical hand just as the webbing in her duck foot tears, and now she is dangling by the wooden mechanical appendage.  I look into her eye, full of hate and scorn, and notice for the first time the bubbly-scar texture under her running face-paint.

   "Hold on!" I shout.

   "I'm not coming in!" she screams, flailing helplessly like a fish on a line.

   "It doesn't have to be this way!" I shout back.

   "It has always been this way!" she shouts back, suddenly more composed.  "And it always will be!"  She reaches up with her biological hand and cranks on her mechanical elbow joint.  Suddenly the mechanical arm is severed with a burst of blood shooting out of its tubing, and Amelia falls into the steamy, whining maelstrom below.  I have but moments to scratch and claw my way to the nearest window and dive out, just as the building collapses into a thunderous, smoking inferno. 

   As I cling to the rickety old flume dangling precariously into the void where the vacant building once stood, I am intensely aware of the bloody wooden stump in my hand and the gaping hole in my heart.

[Sinitrena]

I'm a bit late, but so is the technology in Steampunk.

We have three wonderful entries (despite me overlooking that we had this topic before) and even one new writer in our nice little competition. Welcome, Ess2s2.


And these are the entries you can now read and vote on:

The Taste of Brass by Mandle
2020. It was already here. by Ess2s2
Glade Runner by Baron


Around here, we vote in categories. Everyone is invited to read, enjoy and consider the stories and cast one vote per category:

Character: Which characters stood out with their own personality or interesting development?
Plot: What happens in the story? Is it logical, surprising, exciting, etc?
Writing Style: The technical aspect of writing, including but not limited to turns of phrases, spelling, ...
Atmosphere: The story that dragged you into a world of its own, that creates emotions, vivid images..., especially a steampunky atmosphere.

Voting ends on 28th January.

[Baron]

Nice stories guys.  My votes might come across as a little one-sided, but Mandle I want you to know that I still love you as a person. 

Character: I'm going with Ess2s2 for Johnson.  We never meet the guy, but he has this Merlin-like enabling ability that just makes the story come alive.  I thought Varran was a bit too much the reed in the wind, not really standing out as having a particularly strong character.  Mandle's narrator was equally undeveloped, although his idiosyncrasies made up for it to some degree.

Plot: Definitely Ess2s2 on this one.  It had everything a good steampunk story needs: wacky tech, distopian atmosphere, mystery, action, foreign antagonists....    Mandle's story had a lot of potential, but I found it was too short to really get invested in the plot.

Writing Style: Both stories had some great descriptive language, but I have to give my vote to Ess2s2 again, just for the sheer volume of great writing.  The attention to detail in the components of the steam technology was excellent, as were other word-choices that evoked a parallel but alien era: "powderworks" for fireworks, "'motive" for automobile, "viaspeak" for something resembling a telephone....  Some phrases were truly fantastic, especially pertaining to the viaspeak network, with its pipes "resonating with the ghosts of other conversations ...all in a muted symphony of man living out his days." 

Atmosphere: I don't like to vote clean sweeps, especially as Mandle's story had a lot of merit, but I have to give this vote to Ess2s2 as well.  He was at his best in writing the exploration of Johnson's ransacked house, building in some great descriptions of imagined inventions along with some ominous suspense, but the whole run-down world, patched up and barely holding together was fantastic.  Part of me wondered what they did with all the salt precipitating out of the ocean water as it vaporized in the boilers, but that's a pretty minor issue.    Kudos to Mandle too for his quasi-mechanical orphan-rearing techniques (especially the much-feared electric shock cane at school).

[Sinitrena]

Three entries and only one person voted so far? Well, you still have a bit of time...

[Ess2s2]

Character: Mandle - This was a tough call, but there was something so much...*closer* about the character in Taste of Brass that made it feel like you were getting a snippet of memoir, or maybe a hushed story in a bar years later. The narrative was tight and I could practically see the dirt under his fingernails.
Plot: Baron - I think Baron did amazingly, especially with the way pneumatics were giving way to steam, and the way everything was framed as an underworld plot. I seriously saw this animated in a Don Bluth style in my head. The way everything pieced together and picked up speed was also wonderfully paced and timed.
Writing Style: Baron - Again, Baron takes it here as his writing was so vivid and flowed so well. I will say that I had a tough choice as Mandle's writing style in his piece was jarring, lush, and gritty, but Baron's world-descriptions were amazing, particularly as you got to the seedier side of town.
Atmosphere: Baron - I must give a tough nod to Baron, as the entire world came alive with pneumatic power, and then suddenly the story turns and we get the steampunk incursion that shows a changing world, and one where a true power struggle leaves everything uncertain. Between the rotting, leaning structures and the vivid descriptions of the critters that lurked near storefronts like the Pelt Pot and Pheasant Plucker, I could see this partially industrialized forest glade and it was beautiful.

Also, just wanted to say thank you all for the warm welcome and awesome critiques! I'm looking forward to the next writing comp!

[Mandle]

I really just wrote my entry so there would be one at least in what I felt was a bit too much of a narrow theme for most people.

Broader topics like "Loss" or "Growth" or "War" might be the way to go to get a lot more people writing. I have no real interest in Steampunk so just wrote a story that I ended up getting interested in but not really.

[JudasFm]

I really just wrote my entry so there would be one at least in what I felt was a bit too much of a narrow theme for most people.

Broader topics like "Loss" or "Growth" or "War" might be the way to go to get a lot more people writing. I have no real interest in Steampunk so just wrote a story that I ended up getting interested in but not really.

Agreed. For some reason, I've never been able to wrap my head around the concept of Steampunk, so the prompt put me off entering this one It's such a specialized genre that I really wouldn't know where to start...

I can still vote though!

Character: Mandle. Like Ess2s2, I felt a lot closer to this character than the ones in the other entries.
Plot: Ess2s2. It's probably the genre - like I said, Steampunk leaves me more baffled and irritated than transported - but I didn't understand Mandle's plot at all, and although I liked Baron's, Ess2s2's just squeaks into first place for me.
Writing Style: This was a close call between Baron and Ess2s2, but I'm going to go with Ess2s2. Although Ess2s2's entry contained several typos (capitalization being a huge one!) it still managed to pull me into the world. Given how picky I usually am about even the tiniest errors, this was quite the accomplishment!
Atmosphere: Again, Ess2s2. Baron's was a bit too dialog-heavy; with Ess2s2's, I could imagine the world a little better. Mandle, I'm sorry but your entry just left me confused.

[Baron]

While I was pretty proud of my effort this time around (except for the ending), I concede that Ess2s2 produced the better world and the better story.  Congratulations, Ess2s2! 

Broader topics like "Loss" or "Growth" or "War" might be the way to go to get a lot more people writing.

Edit: A nice topic for Mandle next time might be Losing Growth Wars.... 

[Sinitrena]

I really just wrote my entry so there would be one at least in what I felt was a bit too much of a narrow theme for most people.

Broader topics like "Loss" or "Growth" or "War" might be the way to go to get a lot more people writing. I have no real interest in Steampunk so just wrote a story that I ended up getting interested in but not really.

Agreed. For some reason, I've never been able to wrap my head around the concept of Steampunk, so the prompt put me off entering this one It's such a specialized genre that I really wouldn't know where to start...

Okay, bad Sini, choose a really poor topic 
I was struggling to come up with something and choose the first topic that came to mind. I'm not even much into Steampunk myself. But I don't think it's bad. It's a specific genre, yes, but it has a lot of potential. And occasionally writing for a topic you are not familiar with or don't like is part of this competition for me.

And our three entrants did pretty well and came up with three very different and interesting entries.

Mandle: It's obvious in your writing this time that you don't like the topic. You rushed through the story and only hinted at the plot, though there is a nice and interesting symbolic with the brass Doublet. I think if you liked writing in this world, this could become a great story. The way it is, it hints at larger things and a larger world, but it isn't really there.

Ess2s2: From the three entries this is certainly the one that feels most like Steampunk - great atmosphere. The world really came to life with small details and faczinating descriptions. I agree with the others that  Johnson is a far more interesting character than Verran, who is a bit of a blank slate. Well done.

Baron: I love your world, despite it not being Steampunk (maybe on the way to becoming it, but not there yet) and the whole society is quiet interesting. I'd be interested in more stories set in this world. It has a lot of potential.
Is it me or the forum: All quotation marks are a mess of code in Baron's story, making it a bit difficult to read.

Baron already gave the win to Ess2s2, but let's make it official:

Ess2s2 wins the golden blimp with 7 votes.


Baron reaches second place with 3 votes.


And for Mandle I have a brass coloured blimp for third place with 2 votes.



Congratulations, Ess2s2, you win! And now it is your duty to come up with a topic and start the next round. See you there.

[Baron]

Is it me or the forum: All quotation marks are a mess of code in Baron's story, making it a bit difficult to read.

Hey, you're right!  It must be something to do with the forums, since I always do my proofreading in the forum preview window....

I guess that partly explains my lack of success with the voters this time around. 

[Ess2s2]

It was fine when you first posted, and was perfectly readable. Not sure what happened, but it didn't happen right away.

I'm trying to wrack my brain for a good topic that won't be too niche, but will be fun and also not too, too broad. I also need to come up with something cool for a trophy.

Any suggestions on what might be interesting and not completely done to death are welcome!

[Mandle]

And for Mandle I have a brass coloured blimp for third place with 2 votes.

It might seem strange to others but the moment I received this prize I started sucking on the brass rims of it and it reminded me strangely of home.

[Sinitrena]

It's been a week. I want to write something. Are we getting a new topic anytime soon? 

[Baron]

I just tried to post an updated list of the FWC topics over the past decade to help people who haven't been around for that long, but it kept getting cut off at 45 lines.  I was aware of a character limit to posts, but have never encountered a line limit before (and certainly not one so short - many of my story submissions exceed it).  Maybe there's a better way to post it so that it can be dynamically updated and available at all times?