127 years A.G.E

Gale-force winds and brutal sun bear down on the dunes. The cloudless sky seems to ignore the unquenchable desperation in the basin below. These ever-shifting waves of sand haven’t seen rain since...

Caw.

A vulture is perched atop the rusted antenna of an Aquadrill. Its sun-worn head flicks aside as it scans the barren environment of the Ata’Leon desert with an obsidian eye. The bird’s gaze comes to a curious halt as it spots the roof of a Steamwheel, jutting out of the freshly-settled sand. Zephyr wreckage is a common haven for insects. The vulture, using its veteran desert instincts, remembers this. But after not seeing any signs of the presence of a potential meal, it flicks its head back to the original position it was at when it began its survey. It hadn’t even been a full day since the last Zephyr, but given the rapidly swirling blasts of sand that battered the roof of the fallen Steamwheel, the vulture’s intuition also told it that another was not far behind.

Caw.

“Would someone shut that stupid thing up?” Says a gruff, gravelly voice. “I ain’t quite done with my story.” After a moment or two, pressurized shots ring out, echoing off of the metal walls of the Aquadrill station. One bullet grazes the back of the already fleeing vulture as laughter erupts around the table of drunken mechanics.

“Anyway, so then I says, I says, ‘well, I got two of ‘em right here!’ Bwahahaha!” The alcohol-induced hysterics, which haven’t quite died down following the vulture’s narrow escape, escalate further. Frothing mugs, recently topped off by the exasperated automaton bartender, slosh ale into long, scraggly beards and onto the circular wooden table.

After what seems like an eternity, the laughter and table-pounding finally dies down and, almost simultaneously, the group sighs and take long, gleeful swigs of their drinks. As the bitter ale makes its way into the intoxicated bellies of the weary workers, a copper coin sails two feet into the air. It lands into a gloved hand, and is almost immediately flicked back up, slightly higher this time.

Twing. Plunk.

As the coin is tossed up into the air for a third time, its face, depicting an important-looking elderly woman grasping two miniature flags, catches a sliver of orange sunlight. The light reflects itself directly into the eyes of the jokester mechanic. He blinks, miffed, and glares at the figure flipping the coin.

“Oi.”

The high collar of a well-worn, brown leather ulster, along with a navy blue pork pie hat encircled by maroon aviation lenses, hide the identity of the Coin Flipper, who sits at the bar. The silver eyes of the mechanical bartender glance nervously at the group of Aquadrill technicians and back to the figure slouched at the bar. The movement of its pupils makes a slight hissing sound, which sounds like a Locomotive whistle amidst a room that has gone suddenly silent.

The coin flies into the air once more. This time, the back side of it, sporting a message in an unknown language, reflects again into the eyes of the now angry engineer.

“Hey, are ya deaf?”

The figure at the bar catches the coin, and grips it tightly in his glove. He straightens out of his leisurely slouch and turns his head ever so slightly. Just enough for his emerald eyes to peek out from the sliver between hat and collar.

“No,” he replies, almost nonchalantly. “My name is... well, my name is a lot of names, actually. Every week, it seems like you guys cough up a new one for me. It’s really quite endearing, to tell you the truth.” He sips at the glass of water using his non-coin hand.

The bearded engineer, now standing, glances back at his friends with an arrogant gaze. “P’raps we got ourselves a smartass, boys.” A snigger arises from the table. “Remember what I did with the last smartass?” He flips his jacket back to reveal a tarnished revolver, snug in its holster, a full canister of steam attached to the grip. He grins, smugly, as he redirects his gaze back to the Coin Flipper, who now looks down at the coin in his hand. As he runs his thumb over the strange, indecipherable words on its back, he speaks, ignoring the threat entirely.

“But I do know your name, Thames Bumpass,” says the Coin Flipper. The standing engineer freezes, his smirk vanishing, haughtiness replaced with confusion. The bartender has now made his way into the back room, his metallic steps gone unnoticed in the tense air.

“Yes sirrah... Or, Thievin’ Thames, if you prefer. The Matons with missing supplies sure do.”

One of the mechanics still seated at the table suddenly erupts in a violent coughing fit. Blood soon comes with his forceful hacks, causing the rest of the group to recoil, the closest few even scooting their chairs several feet back in alarm. As the Coin Flipper continues to speak, two others begin coughing.

“I tried to give you the easy way, Mr. Bumpass. I really did. But you’re a tough nut to crack. Too tough, in fact. Previous attempts proved... well, unsuccessful, to say the least.” Another coughing fit begins. “Poison, while not the noblest of tactics, seemed to be the best, nay, the only Path to get you to give me what I need. And although information isn’t your niche, justice for the wronged is mine.”

The first cougher finally stiffens, his eyes rolling back in his head. The jokester gasps in horror as he notices the copious amount of blood pouring from his gaping mouth, through is ale-ridden beard, and onto the toes of his tattered boots. He glances back up at the Coin Flipper, eyes wide.

“Elam’Kurr,” he manages to choke out, as he drops to his knees and eventually crumples in a heap on the floor. The Coin Flipper gently turns his barstool and gets up from his glass of lukewarm water, seemingly impervious to the death around him. The coughing begins so subside. More eyes begin to roll back. As he turns the brass knob of the door of the Aquadrill station, he tips his cap to the Maton bartender. It nods back at him solemnly as it sets the lethal bottle of liquid back into a cabinet, mounted on the wall of the kitchen. With a slight grin, Elam’Kurr, the Shadow Walker, or, to his close acquaintances, simply Enoch Larkin, exits the station. His boots rattle the metallic-mesh staircase as he descends into the scalding sand below. He activates a microscopic device attached to his inner ear canal.

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“Didn’t get exactly what we wanted, Gordy, but the Matons certainly don’t have anything to worry about anymore,” he announces with a sigh. “Third time’s a charm.”

The Aquadrill grinds its hopelessly rusted gears, pipes periodically releasing a hissing sound, a louder version of that of the movements of the helpful bartender inside. It toils away, desperately gathering water from the ever-shrinking pools located deep underground.

Far above, a vulture circles.

The Steamwheel whines along the shallow, sandy path from the Aquadrill station back to the Locomotive. Each lurch of the senescent vehicle evokes a loud, metallic banging noise from within its engine. Its single tread leaves a pattern much like that of a zipper on a jacket, each tiny stroke angled and flanked by two others, one above, and one below. Enoch Larkin stiffens in nervousness as he glances back at the freshly-made trail, but only for a moment; the impending Zephyr on the southern horizon will be sure to quickly pave over any sign that indicated he was ever here.

No clues, no survivors. And he is fairly certain the bartender will keep its mouth shut. Mak’kah and a few cans of Un’guent will usually do that. The less the Barons and common folk know about him, the better.

Enoch checks underneath his coat, keen to reassure himself that his equipment is all there. The handle of his mechanical rapier swings against his hip, and his Rafale lightly rubs against his leather bandolier, which contains five ammunition cartridges, eager to tear through flesh and bone or cogs and rivets, depending on the nature of the enemy.

The Steamwheel eventually creeps to a halt near the eerily silent Locomotive. Enoch shudders. For a machine known for causing such a ruckus amongst the sparse population of the Ata’Leon, it sure is unsettling to see it in such a dormant state.

“Find whatcha were lookin’ for, sirrah?” The conductor barks gruffly. He somehow seems even more decrepit than the Steamwheel. His voice reminds Enoch of the rattle of Gordy’s oily toolbox whenever he would dig around for a spare bolt or empty steam cannister. A grimy, feathered bowler hat rests on top of the man's head, shifting as he speaks.

Elam’Kurr doesn’t answer. He instead climbs into the lone passenger car, carefully stepping over a loose railroad tie. His hat is low over his face, as usual.

The conductor scratches his unshaven chin with a curious squint.

“Oh, right,” he chuckles. “You ain’t one fer talkin’, are ya, sirrah? Well, fine by me. I get enough blabbermouth merchants and pompous young Baron recruits on here every day anyway.” His Tinkerton accent is thick, each syllable seemingly spat out rather than spoken. It is an accent Enoch is far too used to. An accent Enoch himself had to drop in an attempt to further conceal his identity. No matter how dilapidated, no matter how begrimed, Tinkerton is his home, and it always would be.

“So… back to the old Tinkerton we go, eh?”

Elam’Kurr nods.

The conductor sighs. The train only has one passenger. Enoch paid out the rest of the week’s Mak’kah for it to be this way. As the conductor masterfully pulls levers and flicks switches on the large panel in front of him, Enoch’s ponderous gaze settles on the map glued to the wall opposite the captain’s cabin. The large poster has been wrinkled nearly beyond recognition resulting from decades of relentless travel, but Enoch knows the Ata’Leon like the back of his hand.

The train lurches violently forward with a deafening hiss. The conductor looks back with a sheepish grin as Elam’Kurr picks his hat up off of the sandy metal floor of the passenger car.

“Sorry bout that, chap,” he says. His monocle is fogged over from the burst of steam from the Locomotive’s engine. “She’s gotten feisty in her later years.”

The Shadow Walker waves a dismissive hand.

The conductor turns back around in his captain’s chair and Enoch redirects his focus back on the map.

In the very center of the poster lays the crown jewel of the Ata’Leon, the Oasis, a last bastion of prosperity in an ever-growing land of desperation. The only place known to the common population as having a clean, above-ground water source. Being the only true “city” within the undefined boundaries of the Ata’Leon, the Oasis houses nearly half of all of the desert’s inhabitants, both Man and Maton. Outsiders always deem Oasians as privileged or spoiled, but in truth, the city isn’t any better off than people living on the outskirts of civilization; the Barons, tyrannical enforcers of the people (and the closest thing the Ata’Leon had to a proper governing body), ration off small portions of water from the gradually-shrinking lake systems to the public (depicted as light blue blobs surrounding the black “X” marking the city’s location on the map), all in the name of “Order Amidst Chaos.”

Enoch rolls his eyes at the thought of their ridiculous motto.

Starting from the Oasis at the center, several stitch-like lines stretch out, in a dozen directions, towards the amorphous edges of the Ata’Leon. The railroad system. One of the many attributes of this torrid abyss of which not one living soul knows its history or its origin. The mysterious stitched web on the map stands as a representation of just how little anyone, human or machine, knows of where they come from, and how anyone ended up here in the first place. The sands offer no answer to the few who seek it, instead sneering and locking the mystery away, deep below the dunes of time, far behind the ever-thickening curtain of scalding steam.

Most frustrating, at least to Enoch, is the population’s disinterest in any of it. Their history. Their culture. In fact, not many take notice of anything. Except for survival.

For Man, it is water and food.

For Automaton, it is Un’guent and batteries.

And can Enoch blame them? Not really. Survival is ingrained and programmed in Man and Maton, respectively. No one wants to die, even if everyone is stranded in a giant arid basin, surrounded by sleazy merchants, ruthless Baron Guards, and murderous bandits.

The railroads eventually reach the edges of the tattered map. Four main roads. The direction of each road matching the points on the compass located in the top right corner. To the far east, Argg’fen. The criminal underworld of the Ata’Leon. Essentially, a dilapidated collection of shanty towns, full of rusted out Steamwheels, pestilence, and murder. Similar to the Barons’ slogan, the city had a falsified reputation of being open to all, Man or Maton, no matter how poor or desperate.

Turns out, being “open to all” means being open to bandits, cutpurses, scavengers, and slavers as well as weary travelers and refugees. Enoch had been there only once. He swore he would never return.

To the west, Alembica, or as many deemed it, the Vaporium. An entangled mess of giant Widgets and steamstacks emitting a constant outpour of white soot. Few dare to settle down here, and the ones who do are mostly labor-intensive Matons, who aren’t bothered by the steam. Despite being the only place to get repairs for malfunctioning Stagecoaches and broken-down Steamwheels, the town does not offer much in the way of manufacturing. In fact, no one in this wretched hellscape, besides a handful of artisans, even attempted to make or do anything new. It was everyone for themselves. No one cared to try.

To the distant north, isolated and ominous, sits the Bulwark, watching over everyone else, imposing its will with an oppressive iron fist. The headquarters of the Barons. An impervious fortress, armed to the teeth with pressurized automatic swivel turrets, and guarded by a legion of lackeys, eager to brutalize anyone that comes near.

And to the extreme south…

Speak of the devil, Enoch says to himself.

The Locomotive was slowing down. Not too far ahead, three automatons stand on the tracks. Behind them sits a Stagecoach, freshly coated in Un’Guent. Enoch can barely make out the brief puffs of steam venting out of the nostrils of the two iron horses leading the glimmering wagon.

Scarabites.