Arcanum - Of Steamwork and Magic Ch. 08

The crisp and chill morning air turned the breath of me and Virginia into streamers of fog as we sprawled together on a pile of clothing and grass. Dew had collected around us, and the enchantment that Virginia had cast to ensure we would not freeze as we lay in our natural state had worn off with the coming of the dawn. And so, the two of us were beginning to collect ice on the parts of our bodies not currently touching -- a hand here, a shoulder there, bits of our legs. We were not pressed close, rather, we were both laying on our backs, looking at the slowly bluing sky.

"Well," Virginia said, quietly.

"Mmhmm," I said.

A long silence stretched betwixt us. A million things occurred to me to say -- things to speak of, considering what we had consummated last night. I could have brought up how I had never felt quite so close to another woman. I could have mentioned that no one had been quite as beautiful as her in the moonlight, with her eyes filled lust. I could have said a great deal of things, and yet all the charisma and all the intelligence in the world matters for nothing when one lacks the courage to say things no half-orc should ever say to a human woman.

And so, rather than saying any of the things rushing through my mind, I sat up and announced: "I must pack the fire!" at the exact same instant Virginia proclaimed: "I shall kindle the bedrolls!"

And together, we both dressed and fled.

Thus passed two weeks of travel. Virginia and I remained distant and aloof from one another. I absorbed myself entirely with tinkering on my prototype accelerator, Gillian providing the assistance of her deft hands. If she wanted to speak to me about the strange strain between I and Virginia, she never did quite find the courage for it either. Sally never seemed to notice, and Maggie was growing somewhat moodily preoccupied with the fact we were drawing ever closer to civilization, forcing herself to begin preparing to adorn herself with her false beard once more. The only successful task I did manage during the entire trip back to Tarant was complete the finalization of my accelerator rifle. Now it was the primary weapon I would use in combat.

The only issue was it required both batteries and bullets to fire -- requiring me to jerry rig a charging unit based on my arm strength. I wasn't sure how to overcome this deficiency, but supposed that it was still better to kill what I was aiming at in battles. Especially if we were to run into any more damned elemental.

We arrived at Tarant on the 1^st of April, which meant we had come just as the weather continued to warm after an unusually long, clinging chill throughout March. Now, spring had come and come with full force, bringing the customary warm sun and blue skies. Save for the smog filling the air from the factories, it was as pleasant a time as could be found in the great metropolis of Tarant itself. Walking through the city streets with my companions, I was forced to once more grow used to assuming a posture of habitual deference to the sneers of others. For this reason, we made our way straight to the Bates residence. The guards at the front looked us over, nodded, and sent us in.

There, a stuffy servant said that Mr. Bates would see us after we had cleaned ourselves. This provoked grumbling among Sally and 'Magnus', for the obvious reasons of Sally being a sailor and less than interested in bathing and 'Magnus' at not wanting to remove the beard she had so painstakingly glued to her face before we entered Tarant. But the servant insisted -- and we each contrived to clean ourselves up before going to meet the richest man in all of Arcanum.

I entered into Gilbert Bates study -- the self same study we had met in before, a month before -- and found that he was sitting before the fire, reading a newspaper proclaiming that the murderer of the professor that had been reported last month had been caught, found guilty, and hung at gallows hills. There were grainy photographs of the gentleman's covered head and hanging body on the front page, and Mr. Bates clicked his tongue, then folded the paper shut as I stepped into the room.

"You've returned," he said. "And far sooner than I expected. What have you learned?"

I sighed, then took my seat. "I have discovered that the dwarves of the Black Mountain clan were banished by the Wheel Clan to the Isle of Despair. Because..." I paused.

"Because why?" Bates had grown tense, his eyes narrowing. "Out with it boy!"

"Because of your theft of their technology," I said, frowning.

Instantly, I saw that I had struck a deep blow to the old human's soul. His face crumpled, wrinkles collecting and pressing against one another, turning his face into a contoured map of pure sorrow. He pressed his long, knobby fingered hands to his face and sobbed into his palms. He openly wept, his shoulders shaking as he hung his head forward. I had grown to dislike Mr. Bates, for his capitalist oppression of my people and for bourgeoisie attitudes towards those less fortunate than himself. He owned a goodly percentage of all the wealth in the world, and controlled the lives of hundreds of thousands directly and indirectly.

And yet...

And yet at that moment, I could feel nothing for the old man but pity. He had been a lad, once. And that lad's heart was breaking. I placed my hand upon his shoulder. "You could not have known," I said, softly.

Mr. Bates quieted in his tears after a time. Once he had composed himself, he wiped his face away, breathed in, then said: "We must rescue them. If it is but the beginning to correcting this injustice, I will spare no expense." He nodded. "You will have all the funds required to discover what had happened to them there on the Isle of Despair." His lips curled. "Rescuing an entire clan from that dreadful penal colony will take great effort."

I nodded. "Pay only what is required for transport -- though finding a ship will be difficult."

"No it will not," Mr. Bates said, his hands resting upon the armrests of his chair. His lips twisted into a smile. "You will go to the port town of Ashbury -- there is a train route directly there across the Morbihan Plains. Once there, you will go to the piers and find a man named Edward Teach. He is the captain of a sailing ship I contract to for special assignments." He nodded. "He will get you to the Isle."

"Can he be trusted?" I asked.

"Implicitly," Mr. Bates said. "I will telegram him posthaste."

"There is an issue of payment, sir," I said, standing as I did so.

"Yes, yes, I will write you a check-"

"No, Mr. Bates," I said, my voice firm. "The payment I want is something else. Pay for the supplies we will need and the train tickets...but rather than throwing me a trinket, I want you to open negotiations with your laborers."

"I beg your pardon?" Mr. Bates asked, his voice growing cold. "I recall the last conversation we had on this topic."

"And I recall you saying that your orcish laborers were the happiest workers in any factory. If that is the case, Mr. Bates, then the negotiations will be extremely short, will they not?" I asked, frowning at him. Mr. Bates mulled over my words, but remained mulish looking. And so, I tried a subtler blade. Quietly, I said: "How do you remember the dwarves operating their mines?"

Mr. Bates looked as if he had been stricken. He leaned back in the seat, then sighed. "Very well," he said, sounding quite annoyed. "I will begin to meet with this agitator of theirs." He shook his head. "Don something, I'll have to find his name later. Of course, it will take some time. Negotiations will need to be held, discussions will be held in the legislature..." He waved his hand in the air. "My factories supply munitions for the Tarantian Army, and if war brews up with Caladon, then...well..." He shook his head. "We shall see what we can do."

I nodded. "Thank you, Mr. Bates." I inclined my head, turning to go.

But then I stopped.

"Did you say the unionizer was named Don?" I asked.

"I believe it was something like that," Mr. Bates said, sounding disinterested in the extreme. "A Don or Donnel. Cannot remember the surname. You greens have surnames, right?"

It couldn't be, I thought. Throgg is dead. Wasn't he?

I shook my head. "Surely, it was Donnel or something," I said. "Or maybe Daniel, if he was taking a more human name."

Mr. Bates nodded. "Yes, Daniel sounds right. I'll have to check." He looked at me. "Put it out of your mind, boy." He smiled. "You have a train to catch."

***

Vermilion Station was, by far, the most grandiose monument to the United Kingdom I had ever set foot upon. And remember, I had been aboard the IFS Zephyr on her first and final voyage. The station itself covered nearly the same square footage as Gilbert Bates' mansion, but where his mansion was subdivided within by many rooms, the station was a single massive space, held aloft by thick pillars of carved marble. Busts of war heroes and dignitaries were set along the walls, but the ceiling was dominated by a massive replica of the Last Charge of the Dragon Knights -- a popular choice in hagiography, it seemed -- and there were a great deal of benches and seats for the well to do and the poor alike to wait for their train to arrive or depart. The lines to purchase tickets were quite long and our little party stood there for quite some time, tapping our feet and making some small talk. To my great relief, there were other groups just as unusual as ours, meaning that we only got half as many stares as we might have.

Once we stepped up to the front of the line, though, I found myself face to face with a pretty woman in a green uniform and a bonnet hat. She inclined her head. "Welcome to Vermilion Station!" she said. "Are you here to purchase tickets, reserve them for a future date, or to pick them up?"

"I'd like five tickets to Ashbury, if you'd be so kind," I said.

"Before you buy tickets, you need to complete a quick questionnaire to ensure the safety and comfort of our passengers, sir," she said, sounding cheerful and perky.

I nodded. "Go on, Ma'am."

She pulled a small contraption from the side of her kiosk. It looked like a type-writer, but the buttons were large and oddly shaped. She slid a punch card into the contraption, then punched a few keys, a loud cla-clack ringing up. "Are you, or is any member of your party, a practitioner of magick or full blooded elf?"

I resisted the urge to look down to make sure I still had green skin. Instead, I shook my head. "No, ma'am."

She punched a key. "Are you, or is any member of your party, three quarters elven?"

Once more, I shook my head. "No, ma'am."

"What describes the most magickal member of your party: A practitioner of low complexity magicks, including cantrips and simple evocations? A practitioner of moderate complexity magicks, including first to fourth circle spellcraft? Or a practitioner of severely complex magicks, including disintegration or teleportation spells?"

I rubbed my chin, my finger stroking the tips of one of my mustaches. I looked back at Virginia. She sighed, looking a bit discomforted. "Moderate? I think?"

"Moderate!" I said to the woman, who punched down a key. She smiled up at me. "Are you carrying any magikal items or been asked to carry them by peoples not traveling with your group?"

"Yes," I said, recalling Virginia's sword. "It's a-"

The cla-clack of the contraption cut me off. "Are any of the magickal items charged with explosive fire, heat, cold, or electrical energies?" she asked.

"No," I said, frowning a bit. How many more questions would we be getting. "Ma'am, do you-"

She did not look up from her script. "Which of the following categories best describes you and your party? A: Less than one century old? B: between one and two centuries old? C: between two to five centuries old? Or D: Older than five centuries?"

"A?" I asked. "Er, uh, B, Magnus here is two centuries old-"

She punched two keys. "Are you traveling with summoned elemental beings, animated dead, mind controlled, petrified, or otherwise physically challenged party members who will need additional time and assistance to board the train?"

"No," I said, my brow furrowing. "Wait, mind c-"

"Do you have either knowledge and practice, or enscrolled parchments, or charged magickal items with any of the following magickal spells; Fireflash, Body of Flames, Call Fire Elemental, Jolt, Bolt of Lightning, Disintegrate, Congeal Time, Stasis, Hasten, or Tempus Fugit?

I looked back at Virginia, who shook her head emphatically. "No," I said, wondering how many more questions we would have to endure. The woman punched six more keys, then worked a crank, then slotted the punch card into some kind of electromechanical calculation automaton that was humming quietly in the back of the kiosk. Rattles, clunks and whirs came from the machine until a huge light-bulb sprang to life. Dials whirred and clattered, and the woman read some words off a small strip of paper that emerged from the machine.

She looked up at us. "You have been assigned to the mage's caboose!" She smiled. "That will be, for five tickets to Ashbury, three hundred and fifty gold coins."

I frowned, slightly. "I see," I said, then reached into my pocket. I withdrew Gilbert Bates' checkbook, starting to scrawl the amount down. Personally, I was doubtful that we were actually so magickal that we could overcome the inherent technological field of the steam engine. But I simply did not know enough about locomotive technologies to say one way or another with enough authority to make a scene. I finished scribbling out the note, tore the check free, then handed it to the woman. She looked at the pay-stub. Then her eyes widened and her eyebrows shot to the top of her head, nearly vanishing beneath her broad bonnet.

I saw an opening.

I smiled. "Are you quite sure that the machine's calculations were correct?" I asked. "My employer has been interested in-"

"Oh, certainty, sir!" the woman said. "First class! Definitely!"

***

I puffed on my cigar and sighed as I sprawled back in the sitting chair that was tucked between the bed and the breakfast table in my first class room. It was quite a bit better than even the room I had traveled in while aboard the Zephyr, and so long as this train was not attacked by brigands or derailed by a reborn ancient dragon, I was fairly sure that I would be able to enjoy this room a great deal more than that one. A soft rap came at the door and I tipped some cigar ashes into the ash-tray, smiling.

"Enter," I said.

The door rattled open and to my surprise, I saw Virginia standing in the doorway. She was dressed in her traveling robes -- since wearing chainmail armor and a broadsword was considered uncouth among polite company. The narrow corridor behind her was dominated by the bulk of Sally Mead-Mug. Virginia opened her mouth to speak, but before either she or I could say a thing, Sally put both hands on Virginia's back and shoved her into the room. Virginia stumbled forward with a yelp, grabbing onto the ottoman that was situated on the far side of my breakfast table. She looked at me, then spun around to glare at Sally.

Sally gave her a jovial thumbs up, winked, then closed the door.

Virginia and I remained in mortified stillness and silence for several moments. Finally Virginia decided to stand from her stooped position, then placed herself down on the sitting couch. This gave her a good view of the window on the side of the room -- which was dominated by the broad, flat plains of the Morbihan. A few scrub brushes and the occasional cacti were all that could be seen in terms of vegetation, but that did not take away from the stark beauty of this wilderness. Though I had to admit, the wilderness became far more beautiful when one traveled through it at nearly fifty miles to an hour.

Virginia coughed. "Quite a train," she said.

"Very impressive," I said, nodding. "A technological marvel."

"Indeed."

Once more, silence descended upon us. Bugger my original thoughts, now I was wishing that the train would be attacked by bandits. I could handle bandits. I stuck my cigar back into my mouth and puffed on it. Virginia remained seated perfectly upright. I turned my head to watch the wilderness cruise past us. "You know, uh, I used to travel these plains. Back in the day." I said, coughing. "Before I really settled on my current vocation of..." I paused.

"Reincarnated holy figure?" Virginia suggested.

My face heated. "W-Well, yes."

"So, uh, this has been edifying, sir," Virginia said, standing up. "But I believe I shall-" She went to the door, then tried the knob, only to find it refused to budge. She frowned. "Blast and damnation." She strained, gritting her teeth. From beyond the door, my sharp ears could hear the faint sound of a conductor asking Sally exactly what it was she was doing. Virginia stepped away from the door and put her hands to her brown hair.

"Blood and ashes!" She snarled. "Throw this Panarii shite onto the trash heap, Ray!" She turned to face me. "How am I supposed to protect you like this!?"

I stubbed out my cigar. "I can protect myself, Virginia. And I'd have thought you would be more motivated now."

"Oh, ha, motivated!" she flung her hands up into the air. "You call barely being able to think straight when you're in danger a motivation." She scowled at me, then kicked at my shin. As she had become quite the rough swordswoman, her leg imparted quite the sting to mine, even if she wasn't wearing her steel tipped boot. "Pike that!"

I reached down to rub my shin. "Come now, you're..." I paused. "You're serious?"

"Of course I'm bloody serious, you git!" She blushed, furiously, then crossed her arms over my chest. "Y-You don't feel the same."

"Of course I feel the same!" I said, angrily. "I just know you can take care of your own self, Virginia."

This seemed to strike her with some force. Her cheeks flushed even more, drawing her freckles into stark relief. She looked at me. Then, quietly, she whispered. "But what if I fail you like...I've failed a lot of people, Ray. A-And I can't bear to fail you, and if I fail you because of getting into a bit of a tizzy-"

"Falling in love isn't a tizzy, Virginia," I said, fiercely, standing up.

The cabin, which had felt quite spacious a few moments before, was now far smaller. Tighter. My heart was beating quickly. I could see in Virginia's eyes that she saw in my eyes the same fear she was feeling. Saying...saying that specific word felt like a bit of magick in and of itself, a transmutation that would alter our relationship. And so, like the great cowards we both were, we both hastily stepped back.

"Hypothetically!" I nearly bellowed.

"Of course!" she almost shouted back.

"Ma'am, I really will have to ask you to return to your rooms, now," the conductor was saying from beyond the door.

"Kiss -hic- the stroppy moppet!" Sally said. Somehow, she also contrived to take a drink from one of her many flasks of cheap vodka loudly enough that Virginia and I could both hear her clearly. Virginia flushed and I scowled.

"Go to your room, Mead-mmmph!" I blinked. Somehow, a mouth had contrived to smother mine. And a tongue had contrived to press to mine. And a pair of small hands had somehow reached through my hair, gripping me by the root of my queue, squeezing and holding me in place as Virginia molded to my front. My hands gripped Virginia's hips and for a time, we simply swayed in time with the motion of the Vermilion express. My eyes closed and I focused only on the warmth of her mouth and her tongue and the softness of her touch -- her free hand caressed my cheeks.