STEAM LONDON: Realms of Aether Game Thread

[MWBailey]

Dreyfuss looked around, and realized he was back in the Bordello. Most people would have gone all white and apologetic, but a fellow who had a penchant for falling off of airships tended to learn how to survive any sudden change of location.

"Why, Madame" (using the french pronunciation), "no, We were just coming to get you as well! you did volunteer last evening, did you not? Do I have to send for the shore police? Oh, thats right, this is London, isn't it, the only shore police I have is me, a sprog leftenant, and four former Marauder marines. Oh, well, since you didnt sign in blood, I guess it'll be ok if you're late,but but Miss Lighton wanted to take off by firstlight-thirty..."

"No, Madame, I apologize for startling you, and for my levity just now; Miss Nadya here apparently "world-walked" back aboard the Elmo, but came out of whatever plane she "walks" in within my Stateroom; You can ask the delivery boy, who tried to make a special post to the Boheme by coming and bangin on the St Elmo's EmDe Hatch; I told him his error, and miss Nadya thought it was hilarious and burst out laughin'. He must've heard that." (was it just his imagination, or were both women starting to giggle...)  "Even though that sounds even less likely to my own ears, I swear it's the truth. Seriously, Mariana's not said anything definite, but she's as tough and as dangerous as any Marauder when she gets riled up. she'd probably skin the poor girl alive.

[Stella Gaslight]

Helena caught a very fleeting glimpse of Sigmund running down the hall and sprinted to try and catch him.   "Are you all right? I thought I heard screaming."  She wondered if he had sleepwalked in to furniture like Emma sometimes did.

"Look Cain the pancakes have big square things in them that you can fill."  Angel had just discovered Belgium waffles and was busy putting a strawberries in the holes and dolloping on the whipped cream.  Emma wandered in and made the morning grunty noise that the cooks knew meant to make at least two pots of strong tea and keep it coming.

[Nigel Wetherby]

"Indeed it is advantagious to have friends in the law." Madame chuckled. "And even if this backwater port had any authority, You wouldn't dare call the police on poor young woman like myself would you?" Sacrasm was evident as she pursed her lips in a faux pout.

"N-no! I'm fine! I just had a bad dream is all!" He called from his room. He could still feel the invisible tentacles against his flesh, causing his entire body to quake with fear and a dead chill. He slipped a pair of black pants on, followed by a white shirt and a black trench coat. The thick outfit only slighlty staved off the chill he felt.

Cain prodded at the checkerboard breakfast experimentally. Deciding to impersonate Angel and add the element of strawberries and cream. After taking a bite, it felt as if there were some breakfast rhapsody in his mouth.
"God bless the Belgians..." He thought to himself. Remembering the food's name from when Patrick cooked them up on the way to the temple where Angel was found.

[MWBailey]

Dreyfuss paused. "well?" both women said, mock-impatiently, and Dreyfuss said, "I'm Thinking, I'm Thinking!"

"Seriously, Ladies, Miss Emma does want to get started as soon as possible, so..." Dreyfuss stuck out his other arm, and Madame Arachne discreetly put her hand uopn it. He turned his head to Miss Nadya, and asked, "shall we try for theTinker's Row dock this time? Miss Emma usually has 'em make a big repast on the morning of a departure..."
-------------------------------------------------
The Esmeralda Litton-Huiyck of the first alternate world drew her pistol at the same time that she withdrew a stick of homemade dynamite, adn let that dimension's 'Lotta Crabtree light the longish fuse. "Right, now throw the lit stick up and over the wall, right up there,"  Rosita2 pointed, " it'll come down inside and blow the wall out this way. then, later tonight, we can come back and sneak through and go find out what's keeping Brian amd Shai." Esmeralda2 Threw the stick, everything going just as planned, the wall blowing outward form the explosion, and everything.

"Now we shall Be avenged, and Shai and Brian will be able to come back to help us!" Everything was going so well.

Everything, that is, except the Omarsmerti Digger that rose up in their path and turned its side to them, discharging all of its guns at once. They never had a chance... but Esmeralda refused to die without a fight, and charged forward at the same moment that the guns fired, dragging her mother and her best friend with her. The shells arced over them,exploding harmlessly beside the wall, and the guns on the wall opened up on the digger, thinking its crew had gone rogue; the Ladies huddled down in teh rubble, wishing they could burrow like the digger, as the artillery duel ensued.

Finally, there were tell-tale cracking explosions on both sides, and then silence. Th ladies looked up to find that the digger and the gunners on the wall had destroyed each other...

[Duellist]

It was a slightly-embarrassed Leyton who came upon Nadya and Dreyfuss.  He raised an eyebrow at their being together, but did not comment.

"Miss Nadya," he began, cursing that he did not remember hearing her surname, "I feel that I owe you an apology."

He fought to find the words to continue, realising that she was actually quite pretty when she made the effort to dress more modestly.

"I was a cad and a beast." he told her, adding with a small smile, "I have been jostled and jounced about so much that I am afraid that my manners must have been shaken loose somewhere south of Marakesh, but a good night's sleep has restored me."

[Stella Gaslight]

"I am sorry to hear that. Maybe you should talk to Angel, she is good at singing away nightmares." Helena stepped back as Sigmund opened his door. "Well do you want to come to breakfast with me?  The cooks have made quite the spread and Emma wants us to get going as soon as she can function normally.  She is really not a morning person."


Angel had demolished a large stack of waffles and was now moving on to the large artistically arranged pile of fruit from around the world.  She took a strange fuzzy brown fruit and a long yellow one she had never seen before along with her favorites.  She poked both of the new foods with curiosity and then turned to Cain "How do I open them up and get at the inside bits?"

Emma was in to her forth pot of tea and was finally looking alive and noticing her surroundings.  "Good morning Angel, Good morning Cain I hope you both slept well." She rubbed her shin, it hurt but she couldn't quite remember why,   

[ShredsnPatches]

Jen scribbled a note and handed it to the courier she had called for.

Madame Arachne,

I hear that the old crew of the Boheme is in town again. If they should happen to visit you, please extend my warmest and most sincere invitation to The O'Landry Academy for the Technomantic Arts, Artisan Road. Patrick and I would be delighted to see everyone, and (as I suspect that the entire crew descending on the city at once does not mean a social call) offer whatever help we can.

Regards,

Jen Sheehan-O'Landry

Sealing the note into an envelope, she whispered a quiet phrase. The envelope could not now be opened by anyone but Madame Arachne. Handing it over, she paid the courier, tipping him generously, and sent him on his way.

Some time later, the courier arrived at the bordello. Entering cautiously, he delivered the letter to Madame Arachne, and fled the calculating glances of her girls.

[ClockworkLeprechaun]

The next morning Samuel woke up in his cabin.  The feeling was strange, waking up to see steel plating that he wasn't attached to, but the feeling fled quickly.  He spent a few moments checking out the plating on his chest and arm, his normal morning routine to make sure none of the plates had gotten loose in the night.  He went to his knapsack and opened it up, on top were the parts to his Tesla-Cannon, he took those out and arranged them on his bed, he'd probably have to clear it with Dreyfuss before he assembled it.  Next he pulled out a few vial and cordial of alchemical substances and suddenly lamented the lacking of a rack on the wall.  Carefully he placed the glassware on his pillow.  Finally he got to his fresh clothing, and he pulled out the appropriate items and got dressed, this time making sure none of the components were showing, pulling his elbow length leather gloves on and buttoning his shirt at the wrist over it and buttoning his shirt all the way up and pulling a vest on over it.  Combing his hair finished his preparations as he realized he didn't know where to go to get some food.  He stepped out of his room and dogged the hatch behind him.  He could smell food from the left so he followed his nose and found himself in a mess hall of some kind, feeling sheepish but hoping he has hidden it well he takes a place in line and gets some food to sit down with.  Feeling rather like he did in primary school he sat at a table by himself, watching the crew members who were there.

[Nigel Wetherby]

The courier looked around, finding no trace of Madame Arachne. Only after being corrected by a woman who's outfit was not so much clothing by design, but by suggestion.
Upon being redirected, the courier found Madame Arachne chatting with Dreyfuss and Nadya. Madame Arachne read the letter and chuchkled. She showed Dreyfuss the note.
"Perhaps a reunion is in order? Be a dear and radio the others, I think they can spare a little time."

Cain extended his deus blade to the length of five inches. He sliced the brown fuzzy fruit in half, revealing the jade-colored innards. "Madame Arachne told me this thing is called a Kiwi. Sort of like those round fuzzy birds we saw when miss Emma took us to the jungle where we found you." He followed this statement by peeling the bannana. "I think this is a Bannana. Patrick showed me a very rough drawing of what they looked like."

Sigmund emerged from his room, still looking very shaky he nodded. "I guess I could use some food before I we go off into another tangent of reality." A weak half-smile crossed his pale face.

[Stella Gaslight]

Emma was finally awake when the communicator on the wall started to buzz.  "Good morning Dreyfuss.  I am glad to hear Nadya is well.  Come have breakfast with us."

Angel scooped a bit of Kiwi out and gave it a try it was tart but good.  Secretly she was very glad she didn't have to eat the furry outside.  The banana was even better all mellow and sweet. Angel got an idea and smushed half the kiwi in to a paste with her spoon and then dunked the banana in it.  "Try this Cain it is yummy."

The commissary was stuffed full good food and people that had figured out whenever Angel was around the quality of food went up.  "So what do you like to eat?  They can make all kinds of eggs and such but my favorites are the fried potatoes and all of the strange fruits the boys in the bio lab grow.  They managed to make an apple that tastes like a grape."  She didn't mention that they were trying to make a grape that grew on trees and got that instead.

 

[MWBailey]

Dreyfuss answered Emma and said, "Madame Arachne has received a note from Miss Jen, Emma; she's invited us all to come to the school; she writes, to wit:

'I hear that the old crew of the Boheme is in town again. If they should happen to visit you, please extend my warmest and most sincere invitation to The O'Landry Academy for the Technomantic Arts, Artisan Road. Patrick and I would be delighted to see everyone, and (as I suspect that the entire crew descending on the city at once does not mean a social call) offer whatever help we can.

Regards,

Jen Sheehan-O'Landry'

"She doesnt set a date, however. Madame Arachne wanted me to pass that along especially. breakfast? sounds good! We'll try to be there post haste."

[Nigel Wetherby]

"Err...I'm not sure angel it looks a little *Glmp!*" Angel stuffed the end of the bannana into his mouth, coaxing him with no subtlety into eating the bannana.
"Not bad..." He said ponderously, thoughfully chewing the fruity melange as though it were a thought on the nature of the universe itself.
 "You should become a chef, Angel. You seem to have an affinity for taste." Sigmund commented from the next table.
"To be honest," He said, turnign to Helena. "I've never really eaten much outside of military grad rations, scones from the academy cafeteria, and whiskey...er...please don't tell Patrick."

[Stella Gaslight]

"Well here try the stuff on my plate first then you will have some idea of what you like and can go get more." Helena pushed her plate between them. 

"I like nanas Cain. Do you think we can grow them in the garden like tomatoes?"  They had a small hydroponic garden outside their window at home and Angel loved to raid it.  Quite frankly Angel just liked to eat.

"I think we can come say hello to Patrick and Jen before we dash off in to the unknown.  I have been meaning to give him a set of d hopper plans for the archive anyway.  You better get over here before Angel devours everything." Emma signed off with a laugh.

[MWBailey]

"Time to go, Ladies, Mr. Leyton!!" Dreyfuss called, "Miss Emma's invited us for breakfast!" and the four of them went out of Madame Arachne's, up the row, and through the close into the Air Dock, and then on up into the Laboratory Comissary. The smells of all sorts of taste-bud-teasing victuals fille dthe air even before they started up the ramp, and by the time they reachedthe Commissary, their stomachs were growling insistently. "Ladies First," Dreyfuss said, and he and Leyton stood by while Nadya and Madame Arachne went through the line, and then they went through, Dreyfuss piling everything he could make fit onto his plate...

[ClockworkLeprechaun]

Samuel noticed familiar faces filing into the eating hall, he waved over a fork full of eggs and slowed down eating to partially wait for them.

[Stella Gaslight]

"Mama come sit with me." Angel happily cried out.  Emma waved at the newcomers and showed that their was space at her table.

[ShredsnPatches]

"And... that's enough of that for today. Class dismissed."

The group of red-faced scholars sighed in relief, and began a disorderly scramble for the refectory. Jen's singing classes were dreaded by the students - Jen was exacting when it came to singing as the slightest wrong note could throw a charm awry with disastrous results.

Sound in the knowledge that her rowdy charges were in the capable hands of the refectory staff, Jen went outside to get a breath of fresh air. Looking up at the sky, she frowned... was that dirt in the air? Someone had been playing with the invisible road again...

[Duellist]

Leyton calmly saw to his breakfast, taking his time and considering the events and potential repercussions of recent events.  The situation was bizarre, but not outside his capacity for belief.  He had seen a number of people and events that would take time to place in any kind of unified scientific model, but each one had displayed logic and rules.

He pondered the indecipherable message that had begun him on this path, the prophecy that Dreyfuss would soon be forced to fulfil, the orders from Whitehall that would ensure his part in the seer's predictions...  He reflected that the girl, the world-walker, was an unknown variable.  In a way, it should have disproved the prescience of the hermit, but she was not of this world; her absence closed a gap in the logic, allowing him to form a hypothesis. 

She was the key, the tool that he needed to finally save or damn himself...

[MWBailey]

Dreyfuss was momentarily at a loss; he wanted to encourage camaraderie with his crew, the officers and scientific bunch at as well as the enlisted fellows, but Sam and Emma were at two different tables; Then, He noticed that his place at emmas table coincided with an empty side of Sam's taable, and so he simply set his plate down on emma's table, motioned to sam to help out, and together they put the two tables together. "Now we can all sit together," he said, and set his plate down at his place, sat down, and started to "chow down," as Diamond Jack had often put it.

"Oh, by the way," he said, "I almost forgot. In fact, I did forget it last night, Samuel, but we have 3 empty workrooms in th eaft end of the gun deck, with a counter and a medicine-style cabinet each, that would make wexcellent Laboratories. No water hookups yet, though, so you might want to figure out a way to do that and let me and Jock see the plans and see if we can use the solution that you come up with. We keep plenty of water on board, for both potable use and for the steam whistles and the crane in the hold."

"Miss Emma, when did you say we'd all go and visit Patrick and Jen? I'd lik eto go to that sweets shop around the corner by the Wrench and Hammer, and see if they have some kind of maple sugar candy for Esme...

[Stella Gaslight]

"We can go as soon as we finish eating.  It is going to take the techs a little while to make the alterations to the D hopper I sketched last night.  I am hoping that will soften the transition between worlds.  I don't particularly like feeling like I will be crushed every time we travel."  Emma had a leather envelope full of papers tucked under her arm and a notebook full of her tiny cramped handwriting open next to her plate.

[Duellist]

Leyton looked up at the mention of laboratory space.

"Might I make so bold as to confirm that we have a fellow scientist amongst this band of... thaumaturgists?" Leyton asked.  He hated the word, but he was too eager to know the answer for such trifles as propriety.  He was proud that he had stopped short of calling them superstitious fools.

It would be a fine thing to be able to discuss Tesla's latest research papers with someone who did not think that creating lightning was some kind of miracle.

[T.Taylor the Third]

"Trip had just walked in for breckfest when he heard the question
"oh! that would be me. I designed(with emmas help ) the D-hopper itis totaly tech no trublesome magic stuff....Never did like that stuff"

[Nigel Wetherby]

Cain pondered the image of a gigantic bannana tree sticking out of an aft porthole.
"Er...Bannanas grow from trees. I doubt we could plant a tree in an airship..." Though the idea made him smile.
As Madame Arachne approached them, she carried a much different posture than when she was near the others.
She seemed far more maternal with Angel, treating her like the daughter she never had.
"Keeping Cain in line, eh Angel, dear?"

Sigmund experimentally prodded a brown cylindrical shape before taking a tentative bite of the brownish-grey..whatever it was. He took a bite of the meaty cylendir and immediately his eyes snapped open to a world of flavor. He found himself stuffing the entire sausage link into his mouth at once, which caused his cheeks to bulge rather oddly. Though he swallowed it in an attempt at polite cutriousness.
"Well I certainly liked that!"

[Stella Gaslight]

"Yup Cain and I are having 'nanas and kiwi and then we get to go visit Patrick and Jen lady."  Angel was wondering if she got a big enough pot and put it in the open air courtyard of the hospital she couldn't grow a banana tree.

Helena smiled to see the look of culinary rapture on Sigmund's face. "I am not surprised Mrs. Corbin makes some excellent sausage.  Here try a bite of my omelet it has cheese, mushrooms and onions in it." This experiment was fascinating, she couldn't wait to see his next reaction. 

[MWBailey]

Dreyfuss hastened to finish so that he coul dgo and get that bit of candy for his niece. He spared several seconds for Miss Nadya, though, wondering why she had been so suddenly and persistently silent, right after and ever since he had told her and Madame Arachne about Mariana -- oh, HECK! you lobstopper, you, the girl must've been sweet on you, poor thing.
Well, better get on down to that shop....

Several people looked up as he passed, wondering what had changed his mood so abrubtly; others thought they knew, and one or two were right.