1: Upon Which Discussions Of Price Are Entertained

“The price per excursion varies, dependent upon discretion of the Hanhagi Dungeon Company and Mr. Salamarn Vonsteque, the Empire’s right and honorable Minister Of Dungeon Regulation And Oversight.”

Gears Above, preserve me from bureaucracy, Miss Myrlass thought silently, carefully picking up said tea and sipping upon the sweet flavor mingled with almost too much ethylene, fashionable in Asylon proper. Rather than answer immediately, Miss Myrlass savored the sharp and sweet taste, thankful to imbibe something other than watery oils as she had for six months previous.

The clerk waited patiently, his own tea steeping near patiently clasped hands.

“I understand, and would agree with your assessment of the remuneration available, yet I have the advantage of sojourning multiple stations and delving into diverse dungeons among the orbits of Nomm. Prices may vary from one satellite to the next; however, economy dictates there be a functioning limit upon services, regulated by the demand of aforementioned service.” Miss Myrlass took a moment: what some might mistake as a delicate pause in the conversation for emphasis was in fact Miss Myrlass reveling in another opportune moment of delicious tea.

The clerk nodded in satisfaction of someone who provides good tea and remained accommodating, lanterned eyes glowing a stately dim in the small yet efficient office.

Tea savored and composure retained, Miss Myrlass concluded, “The prices listed are - if I can appear indelicate and perhaps even bold - criminal!” Miss Safie Wollesteinkunst Myrlass, finishing both her say and tea, placed the empty white china cup upon matching saucer with emphasis, staring at the clerk as if her message were as crystalline clear purgaglass.

Dressed to the nines despite the setting, Miss Myrlass never let frivolous things such as dangerous environs or monstrous encounters interfere with fashion. Carmine petticoat brazenly opened in the front to the upper thigh after the style of risque dancers - so as to allow free movement - laced in heavy black chantilly to modestly hide black leather Hessians - with minimal heel! - over matching lace stockings, this was the dress of a robotical woman prepared for tea or adventure in equal measure [1].

Moving upward along her apparel excursion, Miss Myrlass might have obtained the label of hussy if her functional - yet pleasantly daring - dark golden cuirasse bodice over comfortable - if sparse - silk chemise (that left much of her waist and bust exposed), were displayed in flagrante; however, all her gears remained covered in a sensible and mod warmly reddish brown leather jacket with double breasts and high collar, preserving her virtue by two rows of buttons and a belt. The only accessories left were thick black leather gloves, a wide brimmed taupe hat with light golden ribbon, goggles made of ambiguous quintessence bronze alloy containing tinted purgaglass lenses and a belt weighed down with bags and vials bespeaking louder than the goggles that this woman was an alchemist.

Seated across from the woman, wearing equally impeccable clothing styled in the latest of gentlebot suits (favoring a particularly elegant cream cravat peaking from his seamless wool coat), the clerk - who introduced himself earlier as a Mr. Nammerworth - took a sip of his own tea and nodded while gently reclasped his hands (more, rather clamp styled claws) over the tidy desk between them, having agreed perfectly with Miss Myrlass yet also retaining the bearing of a civil servant unwilling to budge upon principle duty. He needed not to say anything, yet his demeanor spoke to Miss Myrlass in a compelling and sophisticated manner.

“I see,” Miss Myrlass acquiesced, unwilling to grind her transmission yet silently projecting mental disgust. Pulling out the appropriate sixteen pounds and ten shillings from her belt - leaving Miss Safie’s finances in a dreadful state of two shillings and four pennies - she placed the coins down with as much gravitas as Baron Shivor moving his bishop from f5 to h3 [2].

“Though I am disinclined to participate in willful robbery and would have much preferred patroning one of your more elegant - and profitable - venues, my purse has been light of late and it is better to work meanly by the quick than to whittle away slowly into poverty abject.”

“Entirely understandable, madame.” Pulling out a small tray from under the desk with one hand while surreptitiously scooping the coins away with the other, Mr. Nammerworth deftly filled out the Delving Permit with efficient grace bespeaking a competent imperial employee. “Respectable delvers go into the Sewer more often than the papers will admit: proper cash flow persists the most deadly hazard of the occupation.”

“La! Isn’t that just the thing?” Standing, Miss Myrlass straightened her coat and loomed over the desk with an impressive seven feet and seven inches (231 cm) (eight inches, or 234 centimeters total, with the minimal heel), the frenzy of the Hanhagi Depot awaiting outside - through a hall and past the sitting room - to interrupt what the adventuring alchemist had thought to be a perfectly fine moment of tea and discourse. “Posh one minute, pauper the next. I think all you Dungeon Companies are the real winners in the profit game.”

“Quite right, Miss Myrlass,” the clerk replied with a smile, though a smile upon the traps of a cylindrical chromed snout had more menace than was entirely proper, standing himself up to his twelve feet (3.6 m) of articulated wiry hunched form. Bowing with exact decorum while holding out the stamped permit with a broad burnished mirrored claw, he was the epitome of elegance.

Miss Myrlass took the permit with her own smile, thinking she appreciated a bit of menace. It was enough of a thought to turn her mood around rightly. Feeling daring, she assessed her companion and found him to be of comely bearings. She held out an arm and - fortunately, the gentlebot reciprocating - allowed herself to be be led out of the room, hallway and past the sitting room of remaining waiting attendants, into the crowded interior of Hanhagi Station.

“Your conveyance should leave shortly, best hurry if you hope for enough time to properly delve.” Mr. Nammerworth gestured towards the tunnels busy with queues of the rough and exotic crowds found near any dungeon environ.

“Thank you for your assistance, Mr. Nammerworth,” Miss Safie effused as she strode away, the lithe robotical kissing her hand before she flung back her appreciation merrily in a jaunty wave. “I shall return anon and see if you have any more of that delightful tea ready.”

From the time it took to gait across the massive open space of the depot - weaving past and through the throng of roboticals busily about their own business - that elative boost waned and Miss Safie’s faculties returned to their even presentation of a woman who brooks no nonsense and is a broker of sensible conversation. She ascertained her proper placement in the mill of roboticals, stately placing herself behind the waiting clankers to sojourn posthaste. Her new and current queue shorter than the other twenty-five various dungeons Hanhagi boasted, the wait still gave her time to admire the largest depot she had every been to and, by reputation, the largest collection of dungeons within the moons of Nomm [3].

Enclosed entirely in purgaglass ribbed with alloyed copper in a massive half-cylinder, the Hanhagi Depot had a stunning view into the aether from the surface of the otherwise barren plate. Lacking readily available sources of raw quintessence - the building blocks of all alchemy reactions - Hanhagi would be just another unremarkable platform amid hundreds of satellites orbiting the brown gas giant of Nomm. Excepting, of course, that centuries before aether explorers discovered a wealth of dungeons underneath the surface. Soon, the largest delving enterprise in all the moons began and helped form the backbone of the Urosma Empire. Issere - the station holding the seat of the Empire, the great city of Asylon - was quickly assembled and from that grand station an empire emerged. This prosperity drove Urosma innovators to discover the alchemical inventions in their aetherships that enabled swift travel through the aether between moons, which in turn led to the empire conquering divided roboticals before they could realize they were even under attack. In short, Hanhagi Station was the beginning of the unification of Nomm, whether that be for good or ill.

All this properly relegated to history. The Empire remaining the strongest among the moons of Nomm, yet stifled in the last hundred years as they spread out too far. Colonies have grown bold during this time of laxity. As a woman raised up on one of those colonies, Miss Safie understood this more than most and her loyalties were more complex than the typical citizen of the Empire.

Shaking her head to clear thoughts better left in maudlin moments, Miss Myrlass presented her permit to the receptionist and filed into a narrow traincar with the wheels and tracks suspending the metal box beneath, the ground quickly falling into black abyss below. The car only became half full before stewards closed the doors and a high pitched whirl of modern Azoth Engines charged the alchemical steam inside the copper pipes and used that agitation to create a reliable propellant for the turbines connected to the main pistons. From the time the conductor actuated the quintessence and the car lurched forward, it was only half a minute and with distracted wonder, Miss Safie desperately wanted to know how the engine could transmute quintessence into the steam so quickly without rupturing piston casings.

“Pardon me, Milady?”

So distracted was Miss Safie that she entirely disregarded the first two attempts of conversation made by the young girl sitting across from her in the car. When she finally discovered the attempt of confabulation being made, she stifled rudeness and turned her attention towards the inquireress in question, displaying a visage of someone politely receptive to dialogue.

“I am sorry to seem forward, but might I ask about your alloys?” the girl inquired, her masculine overalls and soot stained aluminum face making it clear she worked in brownsmithing more than delving, though a brace of pistols belied the stereotype. Red loose circuited hair trimmed short under a tweed cap, her unfortunate upbringing the likely culprit for her crimes against fashion. The faux pas of asking about one’s chassis could more easily be forgiven when faced with a woman wearing trousers!

The question, regrettably, was an old hat and with much effort Miss Myrlass resisted a petulant sigh. Better to answer than sit out an entire trip in rudeness, though hopefully enough jargon could dissuade further questioning. “I am a augmentational alchemist of some skill, which accounts for the molybdenum-copper-tungstun casing most prevalent about myself.”

“Oh,” the girl stated, her brow crinkling as she fiddled with a tiny brass cog sticking out of the plating next to left temple, her irical lamp expanding and proving the girl possessed a simple augment installed there herself. “That would give account for your proportionally significant mass and...” the girl firmed her lips and unconsciously touched her own petite chest in recognizable self-consciousness, “...exorbitant schemacle framework. Not to mention your...um...?”

“Rivets?” If Miss Myrlass had not had the benefit of twenty-six years answering these questions a hundred upon a hundred times, she might have grown irritable. Really, it was the height of gauche to talk about one’s gears without first being properly introduced and having had opportunity to call upon the person at least two or three times for tea. Nevertheless, her old governess would lash her into scrap for even thinking of sinking below the high water mark of decorum and so she galvanized her upper lip and plunged right into the breach.

“As far as medical mechanics ascertain, I have a problematic condition,” Miss Myrlass smoothly lied, tracing one of the recent cracks of thick welding transversing the left side of her face. “This condition prevents my programming matrix from aligning with my metallic body fashionably typical to robotical society. Combating this condition necessitates periodically replacing my chassis with patches and scrap metal, creating the patchwork mosaic not just on my face, but throughout my body.” As if in emphasis, Miss Myrlass rolled up her coat sleeve and lifted one large dark arm corded in thick wiring under rough rivet lines and a myriad of alloys through each plate, though they all generally lent themselves to a darker color, as if she were carbon cast.

Perhaps realizing how very rude she had just been, the other girl leaked enough steam to slough away the splotchy oils on her face, shaking her hands frantically. “Forgive me, I did not mean to pry.”

Indulging the inevitable sigh, Miss Myrlass reached across the narrow space and rested her hand lightly on the girl’s knee. “Think nothing of it, everything is pink between us, Miss...?”

“Lilli, Milady.”

Further conversation ended as the Azoth Engines lowered pitch and the car crawled before jolting to a sudden stop and stewards opened the doors. Other occupants of the car - who, truth told, hung on the conversation with much aplomb, delvers being almost as gossipy as peerage spinsters - left without seeking further inquiry and got about the business of delving. Miss Safie and the young redhead did likewise.

********************

Fashion, often the dictator of a woman’s life, had thus far in history said nothing about the exact form of dress one should wear while chest deep in muck most foul.

“I...I...”

Throughout the years, family, friends, acquaintances, desperate servants and even more desperate bureaucrats have attempted to render Miss Safie Wollesteinkunst Myrlass speechless upon one time or another. If only they had known the solution to their conundrum lay in unsure footing, a fall into tarry black vileness from which a gurgled baptism echoed through the otherwise empty passageway. The stench alone had given the stout processors of Miss Safie a fierce trial, yet upon finding the actual substance invading her every aperture, there was never nor would there ever be a comparable experience.

Frankly, if she were of a lower upbringing, she might have unleashed some debase profanities for all the dungeon to hear.

Finding purchase on the lip of the circular tunnel and pulling herself out with undignified schlorping, Miss Safie rolled onto the narrow path running along the side of the tunnel with such base manners that only being alone here would she allow herself the slip. The actual happenings of her past minute set fully upon her mind and with violent need, she rolled to the side and heaved - without any propriety - the contents of her stomach onto the cold stone. Her weakness continued until Miss Safie was entirely sure she had emptied even the hard tack she breakfasted sometime last week, hot acids in her mouth still a better taste than...Miss Safie desperately thought of something else.

“This...was my favorite...petticoat...” Miss Safie lamented, moving herself into a sitting position and surveying over the horrid state of her clothing. Attempts to dislodge offending gunk proved hopeless, as if it were an grotty relative stopping for luncheon and then insinuating themselves to stay for three weeks. Everything was ruined and only her sealed vials and goggles appeared worth saving. Maybe the boots, but time would tell.

“An hour into this delve and already I’m over a hundred pounds in the hole. I always wondered if the gods hated me. Thanks, Mne Osi,” Miss Safie offered the prayer with as much sarcasm as she thought allowable when talking to one’s patron deity. No sense inviting further godly wrath if it can be avoided.

Grumbling other words a lady has no business knowing, Miss Safie hoisted upward and let her practical mind take over while striding further into the Sewer’s sewer. Sitting in a puddle of offal was not going to clean her clothing nor would it turn back time to before she entered this dreadful dungeon. It most certainly would not put hard coin in her pocket. If this trip could become salvaged, she would need to tighten her belt - which she did, the act rousing her stator coils - and crack on!

Delving was not - on the surface - a difficult occupation. Find a dungeon, harvest quintessence, make a profit. Most delvers provided satisfactory vocation finding reliable quintessence the dungeon manufactured and sold directly to factories or to one of the wholesale Companies distributing various alchemical resonances for a small fee. A skilled delver obtains a reliable living wage, though sweatfarms were becoming more common as Companies realized profits in mass producing cheap quintessence.

“Which, at least, I can say I am dealing with sublimer and more profitable gathering of quintessence.” Miss Safie knew she grumbled over nitpicky semantics. However, discoursing confabulation often cooled her cogs and keep steam at even temperament, no matter how inane the topics discussed with herself became. “I could be gathering basic mandelbrium for base consumption. I am no mere food monger, though there is nothing the matter with those farmers who reap sustenance for robotical society. And there is little difference between materials, rudimentary speaking: both are derived from aether, only refinement and application separating the two into distinct categories. I endeavor to work through a different sphere, seeking fractal energies of quintessence to further alchemical scientific progress rather than mandelbrium for gastronomical convenience.”

Ruminations completed and steam pacified, as far as dungeons went, this Sewer was unpleasant but lacked the danger typical of such environs. Miss Safie expected more in the way of danger. Mostly thus far consisting of tunnels cross-crissing beneath the station, the occasional fey torches illuminating just enough of the ground to inform a delver’s senses that they were, indeed, trudging next to a river of poop. Or in it, depending upon available footing, apparently.

Regardless, though the smell and slime were beyond ken, Miss Safie was optimistic this dive would prove profitable. However, in practical application, obtaining quality quintessence might prove more difficult than optimism might overcome, as she soon learned.

“Sir, I find it unfortunate to have invaded myself into your home, yet I cannot bring myself to recommend your accommodations.”

“pllbllphbble!!”

Towering above Miss Safie with twenty feet (6 m), rising out of the muck where it made its home, pseudopod appendages waving angrily about as it cacophoned through the tunnel out of a mouth more akin to a lamprey’s gristmill large enough to scrap Miss Safie whole, a glowing purple worm with translucent carapace plating - as much as Miss Safie could discern underneath black tar - made itself know and appeared to be either territorial or hungry as wobbling stalks whirred dark lanterns in her direction.

“Right, no pish-poshing about, down to business.” Stepping back to give herself room while removing her gloves and slipping them into her belt, Miss Safie shucked out of the arms of her coat with practiced ease, baring her naked shoulders and arms to the humid and odorous air. If a gentlebot were present, he would have found the state of her dress unsightly with such gearage visible, but secretly he may have also been harboring feelings of inadequacy. Miss Safie Myrlass could be called many things, but weak or dainty was never going to fit the woman. She possessed the horsepower and torque of at least ten capable gentlebots and the significant chassis to support so much drivetrain.

Any lady, on the other hand, would have had feelings of inadequacy for entirely different reasons [4].

Although tall compared to an unaugmented robotical woman of common alloys, tall doesn’t give proper scope. Miss Safie was massive in the way 1812 pounds (822 kg) of exaggerated feminine proportions could fit into a frame only seven feet and seven inches (231 cm) of height would accommodate. With coat and skirt, her appearance softened and belied the dense clockwork underneath crisscrossed in thick wires and the patchwork of her riveted plating. It was no wonder strangers often mistook her for some radical amalgamation between a dungeonous behemoth and an erotical evocative shamble of scrap.

“I am unsure of your exact resonance, yet I figure under all your muck you have the heritage of a form of widget. Shouldn’t have too much trouble dismantling you without any untoward abolution [5].”

The worm didn’t care to chat or even give proper introduction, falling forward with a tsunami of sludge and a ground shaking crash towards the woman as she dodged out of reach - only getting her boots wet with some more gunk - and pulled a vial out of her belt. This vial appeared simple, having a blue viscous liquid inside and corked with an inch of hard wax, yet when Miss Safie flicked her thumb on the wax, simultaneously rotating her forearm open and jamming the chemicals into place, closing her arm and activating numerous augmentational protocols.

“Grr!” Though a unique practitioner of her own brand of alchemy, it didn’t change the fact that she was flushing her hydraulics with powerful tonics that shifted her gears, thaumatic energies expounding in ways no robotical was ever able to naturally convert. Simply stated, it hurt. Pain was the first price Miss Safie paid for scientific acumen.

*crckrrggwwwwwWWW!!*

Pistons split her chassis plating, her left arm manufacturing pistons and wires and gears chaotically as a massive collection of parts threatened to tip her sideways in mass and size. Her arm quickly grew longer and more complex than her entire body, an asymmetrical monstrosity glowing bright red in the dim lights as alchemical materialization generated massive amounts of heat on every sprog and bolt, gouts of steam attempting to mitigate the damage to her framework. Her forearm continued to spin faster, devouring her hand and malforming into a proper turbine, electrical arcs discharging along the walls from the building energy.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

The worm continued its unforgivable rudeness by not standing and waiting for the young lady to finish her transformation. Jaunting two steps back, Miss Safie shot forward to leap across the center of the tunnel as the fast worm slithered along her recently vacated side of the tunnel, the creature snaking close behind. Quick succession, both tried for dominance in their brutal fracas. The worm was more quick than the alchemist would allow credit, a pseudopod expanding chainsaw teeth to chew into her plating while tossing Miss Safie into the wall from a glancing blow. The alchemist ground her transmission and shifted to her final gear, keeping pace, running along the side of the beast. Ichor and oil burst from sprung pipes inside the robotical woman, weakness threatening to drop her to the ground as her systems were unable to cope with further strain, visceral sprays igniting from split and sparking wiring near her shoulder. Yet, despite weakness, despite failure opening jaws and threatening scrapous oblivion, Miss Safie grinned brilliant silvered teeth and her purple lamps shone brightly through her goggles as she reveled in prescient triumph.

“I find your conduct unbecoming a gentlebot!” Miss Safie shouted, leaping onto the back of the worm and thrusting her left arm forward, brightly luminescent turbine cackling with charged resonance. Her protocols discharged the gathered energy once connection with the worm’s carapace completed, fractal transmutation actuating to the sound of a hundred lightnings thundering through the tunnel, striking the beast as if an entire storm cloud released its electrical payload in only a portion of a second.

Though insulated from most of the effect with manufactured resonance - part of the reason for the alchemical manifestations of increased size along the arm, not only to account for necessitated capacitors - the secondary heat caused from such a reaction boiled the liquid offal and melted her entire appendage into a fused mess of metalics. The original transmutational energies already dissipating through abolution into the air with black steam, whole parts flaking from her arm and shoulder to dissolve into rusted dust before landing into the muck. This left her arm with roughly as much size and mass as she possessed previous to actuation of her alchemy, though blackened and useless as it was now she likely could not even sell it for a single plate of tin. It was with only a little bit of satisfaction that her teeth remained grit in a hearty grin from having shouted such a great pun before landing the finishing blow.

“Hehe, conduct.”

Though a short battle, the ruined state of her left arm made Miss Safie wish she had brought her welding kit with her on this delve, golden ichor and brown lubricant oozing freely out of the exposed gearing. A grotesque collection of pistons, hydraulics, wiring, cogs, rods woven around her skeletal framing - which, if she were entirely honest, had both seen better days and needed rechroming if she wanted to avoid corrosion at her young age - her entire left arm and parts of her left side missing enough plating she contemplated again whether she should convert to a denser alloy.

Taking a riveter out of her belt pouch, she crudely got busy with the work of roughly closing her chassis together and meanly keeping her insides inside instead of open to the outside, hot bolts brazing together and ichor dripping hotly onto the stewed carcass of the worm.

“Hope this worm is valued a couple hundred pounds after I drag it back to the depot and extract its quintessence,” Miss Safie stated heartily as she finished her rough mechanicery and took out a glass bottle hooked to a rubber tube and a needle, poking the needle into her undamaged right arm past a cleverly disguised weld and sighing as an influx of ichor hit her pipes. “I would be absolutely distressed if this outing could not even cover the cost of silk stockings.”

Miss Safie paused, taking in the size of the beast and slowly pulling out the compact coil of rope she kept on her person interwoven with purgahardened copper for such occasions. The hardy woman was a capable force of physical prowess, yet there sank into her a depressing understanding of weight ratios as she compared her eighteen hundred feminine pounds verses what appeared to be twelve tons (10.9 mt) of buoyant but otherwise inert slag. Twelve tons of monster that would likely only transverse with her towards the surface if kept within the river of awful and dragged by someone equally submerged in said awful.

“…beallucas,” Miss Safie swore.

********************

“The Great Work, otherwise known colloquially as alchemy, is the scientific application and manipulation of the native energy of the world of Nomm. Thaumatic dynamism, understood in theory, cannot be directly observed, though its effects prove quantifiable. Like an invisible and untouchable bottle of oil: we know the oil is contained in something, we know this something has properties, we just cannot interact with it and know it exists by what it does, not what it is. The current scientific minds reason thaum is a form of energy that is not atomic, but rather exists in a type of fractal amplitude that engulfs matter, creating the fundamental building blocks of alchemy: quintessence, or thaumian energetic substances. It is also found in unaltered states within mandelbrium, but that is a discussion of an entirely different magnitude.”

“Very fascinating, I am sure, but…”

“Nevertheless, this is why aether - the semi-liquid, semi-atmospheric material surrounding Nomm, all the hundreds of moons and out beyond the furthest orbits to 700,000 miles (1,126,541 km) from the gaseous surface of our planet and star together - is both the reason for thaumian energy and what makes it impractical for quintessence distillation. Forgive me, I mean resonantial distillation, or distillation retaining the transcendental properties unique between differing forms of quintessence. Distillation of aether is a common practice, creating Azoth Vapor - what the common layman calls Alchemical Steam - and further distillation led to the discovery of ichor in the year 856 of the modern era, only 72 years ago, which greatly improved the lives of those utilizing augmentational alchemy. La! I am getting off track.”

“Completely understandable. Now if we could…”

“To truly understand the costs and gains of the aetheric sciences unique to our world - unlike the mundane sciences throughout most of the know universe, such as on Mother Earth - I should briefly overview how the science of alchemy revolves around three core principles: distillation, transmutation and actuation. Specifically, the distillation of quintessence, utilizing quintessence to initiate transmutation into manageable material and activating those compounds for myriad effects. Distilling my explanation further, like the alchemist that I am - for I truly have a tendency to expound a novel when a note would do - alchemy is about taking thaumatically charged material, using knowledge and experience to determine the resonance of the thaumian energy, transmuting that material into a usable quintessence, then actuating the quintessence by properly applying Attraction Principles in a manner either subtle or explosive. This, of course, is not even going into the fundamentals of Abolution Nullification when talking about opposing resonances…”

“Madame, will you shut your clanking box?!”

For a moment, a hush hung inside the large depot of Hanhagi, the general sensibilities of hundreds gathered there collectively having their very processors slapped with the robothropomorphic personification of Indignity himself. A few rugged delving gentlebots gasped. One girl running the adjacent counter actually swooned. In this modern day and age of refinement and class, such language simply was not tolerated by decent folk [6].

Realizing instantly his mistake and the volume at which he shouted, the silver wire haired and rotundal man in charge of the collections counter coughed delicately into a gloved hand and fiddled with his cravat until it was nearly undone. Nevertheless, he pressed on as if he were not just the height of rude. “The Hanhagi Dungeon Company appreciates that your skills as an alchemist are founded on a thorough education and provide a service of sterling quality. Your distillation appears satisfactory in every obvious metric. However…”

“However?” Miss Myrlass practically growled, her steam rising as she leaned forward onto the counter, the resined lip under her clenched hand creaking from restrained grasp.

“You are not, Miss Myrlass, a sanctioned member of the Royal Union Of Alchemical Sciences.” The man whirred his hands as if to show there was nothing he could do, though lubricant trickled down his copper plating. “Any quintessence we receive from you would lack the necessary documentation certifying the quality of the distillation. Without these credentials, how can we explain with exactitude the material our customers purchase is met with any form of standard? The Hanhagi Dungeon Company gives its most humble regrets, but the Widget Resonant quintessence you have expositioned is only worth sixty pounds.”

All things considered, Miss Myrlass showed remarkable restraint.

*crack!*

The resined lip for the counter broke off, splintering around her fists as the pieces clattered to the floor.

“I have never needed permission of the Union to sell quintessence in any of my previous delves,” Miss Myrlass evenly stated, looking down and calmly shaking splinters out of her muck-ruined glove. “If I were on Dahoé Nah or Tianzho Terminus it wouldn’t be an issue. Even the master alchemists of Hreidfl Station do not require any such paperwork to barter quality craftsmanship. In any other orbit I could demand three-hundred pounds and be thought of as the poorer in that bargain.”

“If you were anywhere else, I would agree.” The elderly collections agent appeared to have regained composure and calmly smoothed his ruffled wires. “You are, however, on Hanhagi Station. Decorum and adherence are more important here than in other less refined moons.”

It took Miss Myrlass’s entire tenure of finishing school embedding etiquette deep into her soul to keep her from reaching over the counter and punching the crooked brass teeth of the collections agent down his tin gullet. It took considerably more effort to set the robust five gallon (19 L) jar containing her daily catch and distillation of quintessence carefully upon the table, choking on her pride as she accepted the light valise filled with not enough coins. Sometimes, no amount of haggling could negate the omnipotent oppression of monopolizing corporations, nor could a robotical actually breakfast on pride.

Walking away, Miss Safie shuffled over to the departures counter on the other side of the depot and handed over half of her newly acquired wealth to pay for her passage on the next aethership leaving to Asylon. Only a day’s travel, the exorbitant cost was not for her person but rather for the crates she had been hauling on aethership to aethership since she left Hreidfl six months ago. She was hoping today’s delve would have provided her passage as well as some spending capital when she arrived in Asylon proper, but now it had become more apparent that finishing her journey and establishing herself as an independent alchemist capable of both vim and vigor was the urgent action.

“As Asylon does, so follow the aether moons,” Miss Safie whispered the old saying, having found a lone bench and leaning back in the undersized seating to glance up through the purgaglass ceiling of the depot. Though personal sensors had become blind to her current vapors, others kept far distance though they did so politely. It gave Miss Safie a moment to dwell that no matter her own misfortunes, roboticals of all types experience misfortune. Ever a business reliant upon fortune as much as diligence, delving brought all the ups and downs of a lifetime into a single day. Stated with veracity, at some point or another many of the other delvers passing far from her bench with small nods in distant greeting likely did so with empathetic understanding instead of pitiable sympathy.

Emerging from ruminations back to herself on a bench looking up into bright nommlight, Miss Safie slumped as the weight of an unsure future pressed, forcing perspective towards her goal. Even through goggles and glass, 17,000 miles (27,358 km) of aether, the orbit aligned at that moment to display the bulbous hulk of Issere phased in night against the day of Nomm’s layered browns. Miss Safie thought she could pick out Asylon’s layered cogwork itself, knowing from maps how it would be next to the Golden Sea and surrounded by a Bismuth Forest. Aetherships of all shapes and sizes would swarm and congregate, the city the beating heart of an entire empire. Whatever her personal politics might be, it was sure to be impressive in full nommlight.

“Tea?” Mr. Nammerworth offered, carefully emerging from behind Miss Myrlass’ seat.

The smell alone wafting from a white cup on matching saucer was an injection of joy, lightening moods and erasing the past ten hours of delving, fighting, struggling to haul the carcass back to the train system and then working for over four hours using the antiquated and inadequate public distillery to refine the quintessence before presenting a perfect product only to have all that work amount into a pittance. Truly, the ruinous state of her attire, her chassis caked in filth so fetid, the odious bouquet…it was a miracle others approached within a hundred feet (30.5 m) much less come baring steaming ambrosia.

“I must admit, if at this time you proposed marriage in recompense for this cup of tea, I would be inclined to accept and begin shopping for appropriate dress.” Miss Myrlass made to remove her glove, but the distressing properties of the black tar of the Sewer had hardened into a second skin covering every surface of her, even down to her most intimates, preventing gloved egress. Likewise, removal of said glove would require her left arm and hand to be in working order, the worthless hunk of metal carefully covered and arranged to camouflage her actual state. Regardless, removing her glove to save the white cup proved fruitless and so with delicate care, the weary alchemist attempted to prevent as much contamination as was physically possible while taking a sip.

Ah, bliss, Miss Myrlass thought.

“Would that I were available - and possibly twenty years younger - I would have attempted such a daring proposal,” Mr. Nammerworth bantered, chuckling with his long snout and carefully easing his lithe bulk beside her into the bench with nary a clank, sipping his own cup of tea. “Mrs. Nammerworth might have something to say if I were to become so forward.”

“I would not wish to presume, though I imagine in my mind a robotical like yourself over twenty feet (6 m) tall ejecting fire and holding a rolling pin, threatening you with domestic punishments unseen in any moon,” Miss Myrlass chuckled, the absurd day she has had having driven her processors to hysterics.

“Silver alloyed, actually, and hardly five feet (1.5 m) tall. Though the rest of it is the spitting image of my Katsurba.”

“La! I would like to someday meet such a woman.”

The two of them fell into easy silence, perchance both equally at home either in conversation or companionable lulls. The Earther clock [7] prominently displayed the time of three o’clock overhead the entire station, the early morning making for a sparse gathering of anyone. A time of contemplation, before the day woke up and started properly.

“I asked around to some roboticals I know,” Mr. Nammerworth said casually, pinching a bit of graphine into his glass from the stick on his saucer. “The name Safie Myrlass is not unknown. Doctor Alchemical, recently graduated, the Ichor Alchemist you are called in some orbits. I even found a copy of your treatise on the marginal applications of Exponential Resonance and - though I have only started into the paper - I believe your insights to have truly remarkable ramifications.”

“That thesis and eight shillings can purchase me a sandwich on Hanhagi,” Miss Myrlass replied with only a touch of bitter.

“Quite right, though I do not believe you are planning on staying in Hanhagi to, how shall I put it?” When Mr. Nammerworth loomed, twin lanterns past rows of rather sharp teeth in his maw shining with natural menace, it causes a touch of fear’s thrill to speed the turbines, Miss Myrlass feeling something in her chest. “Purchase your next sandwich.”

Thrilling though Mr. Nammerworth’s looming was, he was a married gentlebot and so Miss Myrlass elegantly replied with a raised brow, having caught his meaning.

“To wit, then.” Mr. Nammerworth shifted his mien - the bench creaking from his weight combined with Miss Myrlass’ own considerable - taking on the mannerisms of business rather than the countenance one keeps in a pleasant social. “While my obvious employer is the Hanhagi Dungeon Company, I also represent certain interests who look to commission roboticals capable without ties to the Union or other guilds.”

“I attest to the appeal such a merger of commissioners with commissionees such as myself is, in fact, the very sprocket I’d want in my camshaft, yet I cannot think offhand of any reason such an arrangement would be made excepting for deeds nefarious.”

Mr. Nammerworth nodded, likely having come across such concerns before. “I prefer to think of it as a need for discretion. The Union especially has many rules and regulations and all the paperwork, it is a wonder any alchemy gets done at all in Urosma. The robiticals I represent are more concerned with results and they enjoy certain anonymity. Discretion, I might add, that comes with significantly larger purses than sixty pounds.”

Miss Myrlass pouted her lips to keep any excitable steam escaping, thinking about the proposal set before her. Once upon a youthful exuberance, she might have dallied upon a chance such as this without thought or pause, leaping off the prow and then only wondering if the safety cable was attached. Nevertheless, this child she remembers grew up and felt the sting life can inject with the tragic poison of experience.

Warily, the young woman set down her tea and resisted the urge to wince from the pain still radiating from her arm. “Why me?”

The question had a lot of meaning hidden inside, wrapped about with only two words to convey all that needed to be asked. Mr. Nammerworth, fortunately, as he had thus far been able to, garnered it all and gave his answer with appropriate gravitas. “I remember my grandfather explaining to me that life is a journey we take again and again throughout our orbits around Nomm. We start in a place of safety and familiarity, living with the only worries of the immediate and inconsequential kind. Eventually we find a need to leave our safe places, either by choice or necessity. Sometimes a robotical ignores the call and lives their life without ever going on a journey, but these souls stagnate and become less than scrap in their efforts to hang onto safety. Regardless, whether by need or want, we leave and begin our journey.

“The journey, as my grandfather puts it, can have many twists and turns, yet mostly it is about what a robotical becomes that is important for when someone returns back from what they left. The familiar is now changed because you are changed, what was once safe and familiar is different and possibly hostile. This is not a bad thing, because the importance of a journey is the becoming, not the once was. Eventually, this changed refuge will have its own journey of itself and become safe and familiar, bringing the journey back to the beginning, possibly prompting another journey to come.”

“Are you saying this is the beginning of my journey?” Miss Myrlass asked, folding her arm under her breasts and wincing as she felt a building pressure along her left side, likely a complication from her rough repair work in the Sewers.

“As I mentioned, I asked around. Eight years of apprenticeship in the deep mountains of Hreidfl under the impressive tutelage of Hemet Namel, your delving record shows sixty-seven successful dives, you have four papers published in prominent journals. Safie Myrlass is not some Jenny Do-Nothing, she’s a high water bluestocking and I expect great things.”

“Nevertheless, you feel that I am at the start of my journey, that I must choose whether to remain safe or to become bold?” Miss Myrlass finished her tea and set the cup aside.

Mr. Nammerworth smiled, nodding his snout as if the woman has scored a deserved point. “No one ever discovered the true mettle of their character sitting at home, so to speak.”

One of the stewards of the depot passed by, ringing a bell and holding up a placard reading the times of aethership departures and arrivals. Miss Myrlass found herself surprised when she opened and checked her pocket watch and noted her ship would depart in only a matter of scant time. Before she could stand, Mr. Nammerworth acted the perfect gentlebot and stood before her, offering his refined claw to help her to her feet.

“I make no promises, for I am an old spinster and hopefully a wiser one than I have had opportunity to show in past times, yet I admit I am upon a journey and I am in need of capital. Character development can take a second string cello to gainful employment, as far as I am concerned.”

“I would honestly think less of your character if you did not perform due diligence.” Reaching into his coat, the taller robotical pulled out a sealed note with care and handed it over. “This is a letter of introduction to Mr. Fafnir who will be riding with you on your trip to Asylon, which should give you a full day to decide whether my proposal has any merit. Regardless, it has been my esteem pleasure to meet and entertain a woman such as yourself, though I hope you understand me forgoing kissing your hand until when next you have opportunity to call.”

“You shame me,” Miss Myrlass teased, smiling, though the reminder she was covered hat to boots in offal made the desire for a bath a physical need at this point. “I do not know how long my immediate business in Asylon will detain me, but I shall most certainly call upon you and your wife in a near future date. I simply must meet the better half of the premiere gentlebot of Hanhagi.”

“The pleasure would be ours,” Mr. Nammerworth said with a short bow. “Now go, you will want to be settled before the ship leaves berth into the aether.”

Clutching the note, Miss Myrlass stepped back and waved, turning and striding away.

Having time enough to perform a few tasks, Miss Safie stride towards the concierge for direction before making her way towards a public Constitutional. Sore and weary from sudden expenditure of an alchemy such as she used earlier today brought pain and injury. However, more important than even a distress of the motors, Miss Safie’s state of dress could only be described as…as…

Miss Safie paused, glancing downward upon herself and huffing out steam in complete befuddlement. There really was no acceptable simile for the situation, her fashion unbecoming of any company, polite or otherwise. Firming herself and adjusting the remnant of her corset for modesty’s sake, she made due with her constraints on funds and time and went about the efforts of minimal washings from the public areas, turning her clothing from saturated in feces to only mildly stained and utterly wet. Her injuries remained, but the alchemist resigned her minimal efforts and would forthwith deal with whatever the mechanic’s due came out to be.

She spent time in introspection, drawing herself to consider the offer before herself. Coin she needed, yes, and even more importantly it sounded as if influence were part payment of due. Influence she needed desperately on the part of her own goals, making the offer doubly tempting. Yet it also felt as if this embroiled her into a world of intrigue - for a gentlebot such as the esteemed Mr. Nammerworth would not lightly bandy about offers such as he presented without there being a certain amount of complexity to the deal. This troubled Miss Safie most of all, yet what choice did she have at this juncture? None good.

Finishing, the large woman adjusted less filthy yet still immodest clothing about herself and made pace towards the exit of the depot. It was only with the slightest of worry that the pressure under her chassis continued building and the telltale signs of broken gears warned her that she might have less time than she had first thought, lengthening her stride to the queue of her aethership.

“Let us see what kind of journey Asylon has in store for me,” Miss Safie said to herself, presenting ticket and papers to the first checkpoint before embarking outside of the depot towards her ship and onto the final step of what has been twelve years of her ambitions almost in reach. And, possibly, the start of a journey, the young alchemist taking out and fingering the simple wax seal on the note in her hand, a reminder that there were interesting choices to be made on this journey.

—

[1] No bustle, but a woman of quality must needs make exceptions to fashion when one is held in the firm grip of practicality.

[2] For those uninterested in the Game Of Kings, this single move is still bandied about as the greatest upset in the history of cerebral sport. To wit, Baron Shivor - in high position to draw - sacrificed a bishop for seemingly no gain, yet mated in five moves. Known as Shivor’s Bluff, it is synonymous with sacrificing something of great worth so that ultimate victory can be obtained.

[3] This usage of the descriptor moons is a semantic misnomer. While technically true, in the sense that the orbiting celestial bodies rotating around the lackluster solarity of Nomm qualify them as moonal satellites, they are not spherical nor possess any other quality of similar astronomical bodies. As broken pieces of a derelict Dyson Sphere, the moons of Nomm have more in common with artificial detritus resembling broken shells of an egg than proper moons. However, the common vernacular, while often imprecise, is still common and many of these flotsams of a bygone era retain the name of moon.

[4] That, or sympathetic back strain and a desire to invest in more significant tracts of land.

[5] Abolution: the alchemical remains from performance or transference of reactions caused when opposing resonances coalesce. Can sometimes create unstable or unwanted effects ancillary to the primary reaction, thought experienced alchemists harness even these weak and unpredictable results, abolution the principle component in the creation and hardening of purgaglass.

[6] Outside of the banter when one was engaged in deadly conflict, of course. Even then, this language would be more blunt than even the most dastard of villains would sink into.

[7] Time on Nomm, on any moon or station or satellite of Nomm, was precisely dictated by Earther clocks. Lacking day and night cycles or common yearly orbits between places, all of Nomm universally followed the same twenty-four hours as Earth, regardless of where over Nomm one found oneself. This meant all clocks required immense precision and required an alchemical rapport with a central clock, currently maintained on Hreidfl Station.