Main Storyline Thread - Airship Downs

The world of Airship Downs will be richly populated with a number of personable characters, easy to hate villains, the loveable local populace, and, of course, randomness. The main storyline will start you out with the two main characters who will draw you in to their world and allow you to go with them on their adventures. This story has graciously and brilliantly been written by a very talented author, Mr. Colin Druce-McFadden. I know, a steampunk writer with a cool name like this....and he used to wear a handlebar mustache as well! I will include the first portion of this storyline in a separate thread....soon

Hey gang!
As promised here's the story line you've all been waiting for. Enjoy!

Salutations and glad tidings all! The journal you now hold before you is that of I, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Barnabus Brown, Emeritus. It is my intent in documenting my endeavors here, in the lands I have come to call Airship Downs, that, should the unthinkable happen, the world shall have some record of my accomplishments here. I would be remiss in saying, at the risk of forsaking my own humility, that upon the reading of this document the world at large shall honor me amongst the other great luminaries of the Victorian Age: Russel, Watt, Savery, Ives, and Evans.If I am humble, I must admit that my inventions thus far may only place me on par with Ford - an American of some manufacturing sense. However I see a turning point in my creations upon the ever-brightening horizon and - but I should not begin with that, for it is the lattermost portion of my tale! I should by all rights begin at the beginning, should I not? Yes, I believe I should, for that is how most journals are chronicled and I would not want to miss my chance of great historical significance on some technicality of documentation. No, that would not do at all.I shall begin at the beginning. I believe the impulse for exploration caught hold in my mind some time in the Autumn of 1843. I was out of the city, residing in my country home in Ipswich. I find that the intellectual company in Ipswich to be the finest distillation of what London has to offer, without all of the strutting about before one another like gaggles of hen-less ganders. Why only a few years prior to my departure I had the honor of meeting a Mr. Dickens over a pint of Tolly Cobbold porter. I daresay that man can be long-winded at times - it was a shock to discover the brevity of his writing after our chatting on into the night. As I ruminate upon the subject, I begin to think that this has more to do with some editor or another than Mr. Dickens himself... but I have gotten away from the matter at hand.Ah, yes: It was the Autumn of 1843 and I had just engaged the employ of a new research assistant. Her name was Clara and she had quite the impressive pedigree, in both the arenas of Academia and breeding. It had been a fortnight since I had engaged her and I had not yet seen hide nor tail of her. I allowed some of this lateness to be accounted for by my asking her to come to the country, for she had until recently been engaged by her stepfather, a Dr. Roylott if I recall correctly, in the city. I gave her a day or two extra, by my own estimation, before allowing doubt to creep into my mind. ‘A woman assistant,' I thought. ‘And a city girl on top of that. Whatever was I thinking?

Not to leave those select few, who have joined us so early in our unveiling, here is the next part of the story.

Barnubus wrote:
Well, thankfully this line of doubtful thought was a short-lived one, for I admit it proved to be the absolute furthest thing from the truth. Upon the day Clara came into my life I had begun working on a new draft of an old idea of mine: the clockwork submersible vehicle. I was buried in thought most of the afternoon. The problem, you see was in miniaturizing the cranking mechanism to the right scale so as to be useable by a crew inside the contraption – without either filling the vehicle up with its own girth or, conversely, requiring constant cranking. I had nearly cracked the ratio when there came the sound of rapid hooves above my head, followed by a resounding pair of thuds. The noise confounded me to a great degree, for I was at my basement table at the time, which is situated below the home’s reading room.

I was alone at home, having sent Stephens out for new leathers and some bronzed steel plating earlier that day. I knew it could not be he that had made such a clatter, for he was as quiet as a church mouse when at home and as penny-pinching as the vicar himself when at market. I ascended the stair, a copper tube in hand, expecting burglars.

The sight that greeted my eyes was so shocking, so wonderful and transforming, that I can scarcely imagine the day that I forget its smallest detail. In my study stood a stunning woman, her raven-colored hair flowing in tight curls over her shoulders. Her riding coat and breeches were covered in soot and her boots bore the mudded marks of a hard day’s ride. At her feet were two large galvanized coal buckets. One was fairly empty and the other – oh the sight! The other had the bony face of her steed buried in it! The horse, for it had at least started as such a beast, was all bone and gears and piping. Its bony jaws chomped away at the coal, conveying easy portions to the iron furnace which had been affixed where the creature’s belly once had been. Gurglings and the pingings of expanding and contracting pipes filled the air with a steely music, and every now and again the beast would expel little wisps of steam from its bony nostrils. It was magnificent.

Clara strode forward and offered me her hand. “I do apologize for my delay, Professor Brown,” she said, “but I could not see coming to your home without my strongest credential between my legs.”

I flushed an impossible shade of crimson at such a greeting, gawked at the lady, and then at the horse, and then again at the lady. I believe all I could come up with in reply was something like “It – it’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor, actually.” I reached out my hand to greet her and ended up handing her the bit of copper piping instead. You see, I had forgotten I was holding it and so extended it to her in some sort of awkwardly ritualistic manner rather than giving her my hand.

She took it and smiled. Ah, what a romance was to follow! I scarcely believe that putting it to writing would do the thing justice. Perhaps if I were Mr. Dickens himself... but alas I am not. I shall have to let it suffice to tell you that my dear Clara instilled the concept of embarking upon a grand expedition in me that very first night. It was not so much anything she said, but more her devil may care attitude. I shall not mention how alluring she looked, half-covered in mud, for it was only a small secondary consideration, I assure you.

Edited by: GeoFruck

Barnabus wrote:

In the days after Clara’s return, my, or rather our, little encampment underwent something of a miniature renaissance. Upon the first day, I took Clara with me into the wreck of the airship. I showed her what had become of the cabins and her unfortunate coal-fired steed. I was not at all sure that even she, the automaton’s creator, could mend the poor thing. Clara herself seemed more optimistic. Gingerly she and I removed the wreck of the horse from the cabins and then set about salvaging anything else that we could from the airship. It was a triumphant effort. Tools once thought lost reappeared. Useful cloths and timber began to form piles beside the dwindling wreck. Once we began to strip away the deck and paneling we discovered a veritable warren of tiny misplaced gears and washers and all manner of tiny thing. The discovery and meticulous collection of these was not only a wondrous boon, but also served us with a stark reality. Numerous as they were, many of these little things would have to be sacrificed to the repair of the coal-fired steed. Moreover, other bits of machinery would likely need repair and fine-tuning from time to time. We would need to find a way to craft our own part eventually, and the sooner we began, the better. I made mention of this to Clara in passing, but could tell almost immediately that the task was to fall solely upon my own shoulders. My brilliant wife had already begun the intricate work of aligning, calibrating and fortifying the complex workings of her steed. A worthy project in its own right, and one which, I might add, would prove absolutely imperative in the days that followed. I drew up the plans for a rudimentary smithy over dinner that night and then called it a day.

The sun rose the next morning on what was to become a day full of triumphs. Early in the morning, I began implementation of my plans for the smithy. The structure itself would chiefly be made of wooden beams and lumber and the smelting pots would be provided by salvaged cooking pots. These were all either readily available in thanks to the parting out of the airship or could be cut to fit through the use of my little mobile timber mill. The real hitch of the plan was the construction of a stone kiln in which to heat what metals needed repair or forging. And so, for the first time in my life I took up true manual labor. My first task was the construction of a simple pickaxe from the scraps of metal and wood that populated the area about the hulk of the airship. That was a simple enough task, mind you, and one which I did not much mind. Rather it was the implementation of the tool that lowered my spirits and sapped my strength. I picked a spot that looked particularly rocky to begin digging my quarry and set to. The sun was high in the sky by the time I had unearthed my first few stones, and they themselves all of pitiful size. I did not know what to do. Without the smithy I could not build for myself a better digging tool, and without such a tool, the quarrying of stone was incredibly slow. This, of course, halted any potential progress in constructing the rest of the smithy. I began to despair.

It was just then that I felt a hand fall upon my shoulder. It was a rough hand and as it fell repeatedly upon my shoulder I noted the strength of the individual connected to it. Turning, I found that the person whose hand was clapping itself upon me was none other than the fisherman who Clara had rescued two days prior. A warm smile was fixed upon his visage, and though he spoke only Russian and I only English, I knew immediately that he wanted to help. With one last resounding slap of his hand upon my shoulder, he plucked the pickaxe from my fingers and strode into the little hole of a quarry which I had begun to dig. He smiled at me again, motioned that he would handle the digging up of rock, and sent me on my way with a cheery phrase the meaning of which was not entirely lost upon me: he wanted to help.

It was a good thing that he had offered up his assistance, too, for he was much better at quarrying than I. His progress astounded me. Nevermore shall I look upon laborers with disdain, dear readers, for they are every bit the craftsmen that we who deign to call ourselves inventors and chemists claim to be. Still — I vowed that day to find a way to ease the working of the quarry whenever possible. To ask such hard labor on a man for too long was a sin, and one I knew too well from even those few hours in which I had done the work myself. Free from the quarry, I next turned my attention to the planing and cutting of wood for the remainder of the smithy. This too, I found to be slow going. The wheels I had affixed to my little timber mill had made the cutting of exact angles a troubling prospect. The shifting of the wheels also offered up quite the mortal danger to my person, for I recalled all too readily the ease with which the mill had dispatched the bears in the fishing village. So off came the castors.

With that danger gone, I continued the planing of wood in a much more precise manner. Yet, once more I found myself stymied by the slowness of my progress. This time the problem lay with the little makeshift boiler I had thrown together to feed the whirring of the sawblades. The thing constantly needed feeding with new lumps of coal and fresh water; it did a poor job of retaining heat and pressure; the grievances go on. After a fair while of working the thing, my temper began to boil more readily than the boiler itself. I decided to take a breather and to check up on Clara’s progress with her steed. I had meant to commiserate over what were likely to be two equally trying construction projects, but when I found her, Clara astounded me with the progress she had made. Not only had she repaired the delicate workings of her steed, but she had mended its broken ribs and leg with what looked like freshly-fired amber. I tell you, there is nothing that my dear Clara cannot do.

“How comes the resurrection?” I asked her cheekily, trying to mask my astonishment. She spun about alarmedly, not having heard my approach. When she saw that it was me, however, the warning went out of her and she smiled sweetly. “Barnabas!” she exclaimed. “Why you’re just in time to find out for yourself. All he needs is a bit of feeding and he’ll be up and about.” With that, Clara shoveled a few scoops of coal into the automaton’s belly and struck a spark. The coal caught flame and soon the steed began to ping and whir its way toward life. The first sign we had that Clara’s work had been done correctly was the twitch of a metal ear. It was followed shortly by the raising and then stamping of a clockwork hoof. Then, at last, the mechanical steed snorted a puff of steam from out its steel nostrils and lurched forward into a cheery little trot.

The contraption wheeled about in a series of tight circles and then, seemingly having had enough fun, returned to Clara’s side and bowed its head.“Remarkable,” I said. Clara smiled and thanked me. She then asked how my own endeavors were going. I was forced to confess that they had not been so fruitful as her own. I was in the midst of describing my troubles with the timber mill when I suddenly had a brainwave. “Clara,” I said, “how strong do you think that your mechanical steed here is, now that he’s back in working order?”“Strong as he ever was, I’d wager,” she replied. “He’d carry the two of us at a gallop, and a good amount of coal for his fuel along with us.”“Splendid,” I said. “Might I borrow him for a moment?” I had recalled, you see, the presence of the two boilers which were buried at the front of the airship. They were too heavy for me to have rescued them alone, but with the help of Clara’s mechanical steed, the task seemed less daunting.

Sure enough, the freeing of the first boiler went quite smoothly. Up and out of the earth it popped, none the worse for wear. With the help of the steed, we dragged the thing over to the timber mill and set about affixing it. When all was said and done, the timber mill worked like a charm. No longer did I have to feed the boiler constantly with coal, for it was large enough to only need fuel once in every few days. The mill was grander now, as well. I can think of no lumber yard that would have scoffed at its presence either, for it cut and planed wood to perfect measure at a quick and easy pace.

The construction of the smithy was looking more and more feasible all the time. In fact, I was just about to return to the placing and fixing of planks when I remembered the second boiler, still buried in the airship’s belly. Off I strode, mechanical steed in tow, to get the thing. This time things did not go so smoothly. The boiler was about half-way out of the belly of the craft when the airship gave a terrible shudder. Worried, I spurred the steed on. Dutifully it doubled its pace and we wrenched the boiler free. No sooner had we pulled the thing loose though, than the airship gave a groan and a creak and then broke apart. What rigging and timber remained of the ship’s frame shattered, crumpled and collapsed in a cloud of soot and dust. The great main gear of the ship’s engine could be seen teetering through the smoke and all manner of scraping and twisting sounds could be heard from the area of the collapsing engine room. Clara and I ran for our lives, the coal-fired steed doing its best to keep up, tethered as it was to the second boiler. The last thing I recall seeing before I hid my eyes from the ever expanding cloud of debris was the ship’s main gear coming down. There followed a resounding thud and a tremor that must have been felt for a mile around.

When the dust finally cleared, Clara and I beheld the day’s final miracle. The airship was no more. Only a smattering of splintered timber and severed ropes told of what it had once been. In the airship’s place there lay, flat upon the ground, the massive main gear. Atop the gear, held aloft like a twisted, metalwork memorial, stood the airship’s driveshaft. But this was not the most wondrous of the sights that greeted our eyes. There before us, standing as calmly as a mule in its pen, was the coal-fired steed. Behind it lay the second boiler, dented but intact. We had lost the last remnants of our vessel, but in so doing we had gained the seeds with which we would sow our new life in Airship Downs.

The smithy was completed in the following days, much thanks to the fisherman and his labor in the quarry. With his help, we also improved upon accommodation for both Clara and myself and his own family. The first of the little family to speak to us in English was the young girl, her brother following suit in short order. Such is the power for understanding in the mind of a child. With the help of the children we taught their parents to speak to us as well.

What a marvel of a thing is language. Friendships are garnered through understanding, and these friendships lead to sharing. The most wonderful things that the fishers, or the “Fishers” as we later dubbed them (their native surname proved unintelligible to the English ear), was the telling of stories. They shared with us the myths of their people, populated by creatures like the Yeti and the Sirin which were foreign to us. We shared with them tales of London and what fables of our own we could recall. But the most interesting tales told by far were those that the Fisher family swore to be true: The bears we had fought had a chief and came from lands as far away as our own; the lake upon whose bank they had settled was as wide as an ocean and its depths teemed with life stranger than any found in myth; far to the north there stood a mountain which made its own clouds and populated its own hillsides with creatures whose eyes burned red; the very stones that lay beside the lake had souls and magics all their own.

The stories went on and on... In due time, we would discover that many of their tales held true, but that, as they say, is another story.