The Path of Steam - Part I
Posted: Sat Nov 02, 2024 8:34 pm
19th Searing, 124
Stefan walked into his most private sanctuary. It was quiet. Quiet, but not silent.
It was never silent on the Sky Islands. The streets teamed with life, at the Windworks a hundred projects, large and small, for the good of Zaichaer were going at any given time. Airships sped by or swooped between the ground and the docks, taxiing supplies to the workers and folk to work or home. Even at night when the docks stopped operating and the Windworks was still the sound of the Islands themselves remained. Wind whipped clouds by, and sometimes through, the city blocks that hovered above the capital city. On rare nights when there was little wind one could close their eyes and hear the hum of the vast engines that kept them all aloft, murmuring always in the background.
Even in the secret laboratory where the First Minister kept the two most sensitive and dangerous objects he possessed, deep underground, as far from the open air as one could be on the Islands, he could hear the engines, like a throb in the walls. Ever present, it was something felt more than heard.
The government was expanded, filled out with ministers for every quarter, foreign and domestic. Each member of the First Minister's cabinet was stretching their wings, testing their power and finding out where they fit in the moving reality of the machines of governance. There was talk of forming a parliament from which new ministers would be chosen in the future. Elections would be held, in the years to come, however the final form of the new system ended up. The people were, however, for the moment, content. There was food for every mouth, clothing for every back, and work for every hand. Important work that each citizen knew was vital for their survival or their future ability to thrive. The city itself was back up and running, airships flew to every corner of the land claimed as Zaichaeri, bringing supplies back and forth as they were needed. Foreign trade was starting again, food and raw materials exported, finished goods and especially livestock, imported.
So much of the wildlife was dead, devastated by first the Mist Storm and then the Eclipse, that the ecologists were deeply worried. Ensuring the health of the land for future planting seasons and generations to come was one of the top priorities for the government, taking a backseat only to the safety and health of the human survivors. With the excess of food being created between the Negation greenhouses that the Order had set up throughout the nation and the aid of both the ecology department and the Kindred coven, the population losses had finally turned around. There were more births than deaths for the first time in years. In this effort too, the First Minister was doing his part, now the father of three healthy children. If the birth of his twins had been fraught, none outside the family circle knew of his personal troubles. 'The Glade Princes' his sons were being called, though Zaichaer held to no notion of nobility in a familial sense, Stefan knew that his family was seen as something of unofficial royalty by the populous. In time, he hoped, the idea would fade, though it was more than could be hoped that he would ever be allowed to live the quiet life of a family man and engineer.
With the diminished public schedule afforded him by no longer being the sole government minister, he was giving himself time to return to the hobby that had once been his job and remained his dream. The prototype armored suits that he had made and implemented to great effect during the restoration of the city were being recreated now, as supplies became available that were not needed for the more important repair of either the city or the airships that protected it. Some of the limited free time he had gained was going to training airmen in their use. Having small groups of the suits with specially trained soldiers to pilot them on every major battleship would offer a significant advantage. He had also helped work out the engineering of the message relays that connected the capital to all the major forts on the four borders. Now anyone who needed to could send and receive back instructions, supply orders and even limited personal messages in mere minutes. The messaging idea had combined with Eitan's Negation innovations, which had led to the Warding Stations. The stations were set up all across the city. They contained a smaller version of the messaging network, and were staffed by Order officers to ensure the protection of all citizens within the city. This was useful and good, but it was not what made the Warding stations innovations. The aetherically entangled stations created a network of Negation wards that, when working correctly, blocked entry to the city by any creature, physical or aetheric. The gateways to the city could be opened or closed from the great bubble of protection to allow normal traffic and trade in and out, but in an emergency, they could also be closed. In times of great danger, such as another rift or Mist Storm, there were protocols that would place strong Order Negationists at each of the Warding Stations to continuously renew and support the wards. All but the highest level of outside influence would be rebuffed.
A sense of safety had restored order to the city, which, now cleansed of the disaster, was beginning to thrive. The mines would reopen soon, and the factories roar to life once more. Zaichaer, like the Sky Islands, would rise, stronger than ever.
So, Stefan had the most unusual of things, an evening in which he was not needed. The door and walls of the sanctuary which felt more like a tomb, were as heavily warded as Eitan's grand mastery could afford them. It was a discipline in which Stefan was only theoretically knowledgeable, but even he could see, through his Aether-glass spectacles, the complexity of the woven aether. Being in a room so thoroughly infused with magic would once have made him feel on edge, but he was so used to it now that it only felt like being protected by the intention of his brother-in-law.
The room felt like a tomb because of the two corpses that resided within. One was that of the person he had, for the majority of his life, loved most. The other was that of the creature which still held his greatest despise. At least, he hoped that Lyra was dead in her prison. There were times that he imagined he could feel her malignancy in the very air of the room, which was one of the reasons it was so heavily warded. Certain sectors of the Order had now sent requests to study the shard and its inhabitant, living or dead. It was being considered, but Stefan was leaving the decision to the Order. He would give up the demonstone for study if asked, for, while he feared it, he held no love of its ownership. Over the time since he had obtained the cursed gem, he had done significant experiments of his own, discovering that he held a great deal of potential energy, fuel enough to power the entire Sky Islands complex. He had even gone so far as to build a contraption to extract the energy, should it be needed in an emergency. Better to use the remains of an enemy that let the Sky Islands crash to the ground, if it ever came to that.
The second set of remains was significantly more obvious than the first. Brenner's skeleton stood on a special stand in a niche in the wall. The niche looked funereal by design. Stefan's brother deserved reverence but Stefan had not been able to bring himself to bury or otherwise let go of the remains and only the lesser reasoning behind this choice was personal. The main reason to keep the bones was that they were not, in fact, bone. They held, in places, the shape of human bones, but they were not made of bone. At first, he had believed that metal encased the bones, but, after carefully experimenting he had discovered that the original matter had been entirely replaced by an alloy that he had never encountered before. Additionally, there was connective tissue, almost like muscle or tendons, also of mental, throughout the structure. It was as if something had been reshaping his brother from the inside out, but had not been finished at the time of his death.
After many examinations and even taking a small sample of the metal for testing, Stefan had attempted to see what would happen if he ran a small current of electrical power into one of the skeletal fingers. Nothing had happened. Even with repeated attempts. Once this failure had been fully documented, he tried to use a tiny piece of Aetherite to power the remains. This had led to an exceptionally minor movement in the finger. Even as minor as it had been, and even though his scientific mind had been hoping for it, it had still startled him so badly to see the movement that it had been several weeks before he had returned to attempt the experiment again. The implications of what he was doing, he kept at all times, carefully at bay. If it was just science, just engineering, then there was nothing to either hope nor fear.
After trying several types of dragonshards and discovering no difference between the exceptionally minor reactions, the thought had occurred to him to use the hated demonstone. The implications of such an idea, he refused to acknowledge even as they poured into his mind with the knowledge of how both fitting and apt they were.
This was what he was there that evening to try. Grounding wires had been attached to the skeletal hand, ensuring that whatever came from the shard could pass no further than the wrist (the last thing he wanted was to release some Lyra ghost into what remained of his brother's form). Stefan's boots and elbow-length gloves were coated in both rubber and wards that would ground aether as well as most types of energy, harmlessly, into the floor. His goggles were aether glass and warded against heat and blinding light. Precautions were taken, and this he would use as an excuse to his family if anything went wrong, for he had not told anyone of this particular experiment, nor any of other others involving the metal remains. It was private; like grieving, secret; like grave robbing. It was his and no one else's. Brenner was his.
The contraption that allowed for power to be pulled from the demonstone was attached, and, in due time, switched on. For a moment, nothing happened. No sound at all for a pause before Stefan released his held breath in a sigh of disappointment. Then, the hand moved. Not the spasmodic movement of electricity through circuits, but movements that looked quite like there was intention behind them. The fingers stretched, then curled into a fist. They remained thus for a time and then they stretched back out, each moving a little separately from the others. The hand looked, for all the world as though it were reaching out for something, or someone.
Stefan walked into his most private sanctuary. It was quiet. Quiet, but not silent.
It was never silent on the Sky Islands. The streets teamed with life, at the Windworks a hundred projects, large and small, for the good of Zaichaer were going at any given time. Airships sped by or swooped between the ground and the docks, taxiing supplies to the workers and folk to work or home. Even at night when the docks stopped operating and the Windworks was still the sound of the Islands themselves remained. Wind whipped clouds by, and sometimes through, the city blocks that hovered above the capital city. On rare nights when there was little wind one could close their eyes and hear the hum of the vast engines that kept them all aloft, murmuring always in the background.
Even in the secret laboratory where the First Minister kept the two most sensitive and dangerous objects he possessed, deep underground, as far from the open air as one could be on the Islands, he could hear the engines, like a throb in the walls. Ever present, it was something felt more than heard.
The government was expanded, filled out with ministers for every quarter, foreign and domestic. Each member of the First Minister's cabinet was stretching their wings, testing their power and finding out where they fit in the moving reality of the machines of governance. There was talk of forming a parliament from which new ministers would be chosen in the future. Elections would be held, in the years to come, however the final form of the new system ended up. The people were, however, for the moment, content. There was food for every mouth, clothing for every back, and work for every hand. Important work that each citizen knew was vital for their survival or their future ability to thrive. The city itself was back up and running, airships flew to every corner of the land claimed as Zaichaeri, bringing supplies back and forth as they were needed. Foreign trade was starting again, food and raw materials exported, finished goods and especially livestock, imported.
So much of the wildlife was dead, devastated by first the Mist Storm and then the Eclipse, that the ecologists were deeply worried. Ensuring the health of the land for future planting seasons and generations to come was one of the top priorities for the government, taking a backseat only to the safety and health of the human survivors. With the excess of food being created between the Negation greenhouses that the Order had set up throughout the nation and the aid of both the ecology department and the Kindred coven, the population losses had finally turned around. There were more births than deaths for the first time in years. In this effort too, the First Minister was doing his part, now the father of three healthy children. If the birth of his twins had been fraught, none outside the family circle knew of his personal troubles. 'The Glade Princes' his sons were being called, though Zaichaer held to no notion of nobility in a familial sense, Stefan knew that his family was seen as something of unofficial royalty by the populous. In time, he hoped, the idea would fade, though it was more than could be hoped that he would ever be allowed to live the quiet life of a family man and engineer.
With the diminished public schedule afforded him by no longer being the sole government minister, he was giving himself time to return to the hobby that had once been his job and remained his dream. The prototype armored suits that he had made and implemented to great effect during the restoration of the city were being recreated now, as supplies became available that were not needed for the more important repair of either the city or the airships that protected it. Some of the limited free time he had gained was going to training airmen in their use. Having small groups of the suits with specially trained soldiers to pilot them on every major battleship would offer a significant advantage. He had also helped work out the engineering of the message relays that connected the capital to all the major forts on the four borders. Now anyone who needed to could send and receive back instructions, supply orders and even limited personal messages in mere minutes. The messaging idea had combined with Eitan's Negation innovations, which had led to the Warding Stations. The stations were set up all across the city. They contained a smaller version of the messaging network, and were staffed by Order officers to ensure the protection of all citizens within the city. This was useful and good, but it was not what made the Warding stations innovations. The aetherically entangled stations created a network of Negation wards that, when working correctly, blocked entry to the city by any creature, physical or aetheric. The gateways to the city could be opened or closed from the great bubble of protection to allow normal traffic and trade in and out, but in an emergency, they could also be closed. In times of great danger, such as another rift or Mist Storm, there were protocols that would place strong Order Negationists at each of the Warding Stations to continuously renew and support the wards. All but the highest level of outside influence would be rebuffed.
A sense of safety had restored order to the city, which, now cleansed of the disaster, was beginning to thrive. The mines would reopen soon, and the factories roar to life once more. Zaichaer, like the Sky Islands, would rise, stronger than ever.
So, Stefan had the most unusual of things, an evening in which he was not needed. The door and walls of the sanctuary which felt more like a tomb, were as heavily warded as Eitan's grand mastery could afford them. It was a discipline in which Stefan was only theoretically knowledgeable, but even he could see, through his Aether-glass spectacles, the complexity of the woven aether. Being in a room so thoroughly infused with magic would once have made him feel on edge, but he was so used to it now that it only felt like being protected by the intention of his brother-in-law.
The room felt like a tomb because of the two corpses that resided within. One was that of the person he had, for the majority of his life, loved most. The other was that of the creature which still held his greatest despise. At least, he hoped that Lyra was dead in her prison. There were times that he imagined he could feel her malignancy in the very air of the room, which was one of the reasons it was so heavily warded. Certain sectors of the Order had now sent requests to study the shard and its inhabitant, living or dead. It was being considered, but Stefan was leaving the decision to the Order. He would give up the demonstone for study if asked, for, while he feared it, he held no love of its ownership. Over the time since he had obtained the cursed gem, he had done significant experiments of his own, discovering that he held a great deal of potential energy, fuel enough to power the entire Sky Islands complex. He had even gone so far as to build a contraption to extract the energy, should it be needed in an emergency. Better to use the remains of an enemy that let the Sky Islands crash to the ground, if it ever came to that.
The second set of remains was significantly more obvious than the first. Brenner's skeleton stood on a special stand in a niche in the wall. The niche looked funereal by design. Stefan's brother deserved reverence but Stefan had not been able to bring himself to bury or otherwise let go of the remains and only the lesser reasoning behind this choice was personal. The main reason to keep the bones was that they were not, in fact, bone. They held, in places, the shape of human bones, but they were not made of bone. At first, he had believed that metal encased the bones, but, after carefully experimenting he had discovered that the original matter had been entirely replaced by an alloy that he had never encountered before. Additionally, there was connective tissue, almost like muscle or tendons, also of mental, throughout the structure. It was as if something had been reshaping his brother from the inside out, but had not been finished at the time of his death.
After many examinations and even taking a small sample of the metal for testing, Stefan had attempted to see what would happen if he ran a small current of electrical power into one of the skeletal fingers. Nothing had happened. Even with repeated attempts. Once this failure had been fully documented, he tried to use a tiny piece of Aetherite to power the remains. This had led to an exceptionally minor movement in the finger. Even as minor as it had been, and even though his scientific mind had been hoping for it, it had still startled him so badly to see the movement that it had been several weeks before he had returned to attempt the experiment again. The implications of what he was doing, he kept at all times, carefully at bay. If it was just science, just engineering, then there was nothing to either hope nor fear.
After trying several types of dragonshards and discovering no difference between the exceptionally minor reactions, the thought had occurred to him to use the hated demonstone. The implications of such an idea, he refused to acknowledge even as they poured into his mind with the knowledge of how both fitting and apt they were.
This was what he was there that evening to try. Grounding wires had been attached to the skeletal hand, ensuring that whatever came from the shard could pass no further than the wrist (the last thing he wanted was to release some Lyra ghost into what remained of his brother's form). Stefan's boots and elbow-length gloves were coated in both rubber and wards that would ground aether as well as most types of energy, harmlessly, into the floor. His goggles were aether glass and warded against heat and blinding light. Precautions were taken, and this he would use as an excuse to his family if anything went wrong, for he had not told anyone of this particular experiment, nor any of other others involving the metal remains. It was private; like grieving, secret; like grave robbing. It was his and no one else's. Brenner was his.
The contraption that allowed for power to be pulled from the demonstone was attached, and, in due time, switched on. For a moment, nothing happened. No sound at all for a pause before Stefan released his held breath in a sigh of disappointment. Then, the hand moved. Not the spasmodic movement of electricity through circuits, but movements that looked quite like there was intention behind them. The fingers stretched, then curled into a fist. They remained thus for a time and then they stretched back out, each moving a little separately from the others. The hand looked, for all the world as though it were reaching out for something, or someone.
