Project Q

Ashfall

2011-06-06T16:58:00.000-07:00

The Digital Knights had the situation well in hand. It was time for me to help rescue Dr. Mason from a "Mainlander" wearing the clothes stolen from me by Marcus Mason.

My weapon was bulky. It was a rocket launcher designed for dispatching Baba Yaga's ships. I had one shell left. The scope, however, was perfectly calibrated. The target was fast, but clumsy. Not using its full potential. Was Marcus not fully integrated into Ash's circuitry? Or was Ash resisting?

The target wounded Koen's darkforce with an isomorphic disc. I aimed for the Ash's strike zone. Unlike a human target, a head shot would not terminate. Only disable. Dr. Mason was helpless.

Target is preparing for a death blow. Target is open. Fire.

The target fell in an explosion of brass. The torso was still smoking as Dr. Mason and Koen rose from their defensive positions.

Koen stared at the damage and shook his head. Dr. Mason gazed back at me through his binoculars. I read his lips...

"You hit the chest. Soul-shard..."

I lowered the scope. Founder forgive me. I had to save my family. He would have done the same.

I felt the shockwave of an explosion behind me. I turned around and witnessed the city of Cala Mondrago erupt in flames.

The power plant ripped open from the inside, from which rose as nimbus of lighting in a vaguely humanoid shape. Energy arced from its hands, exploding every structure it crossed. Flames raced across the power lines, dancing from shop to shop and tent to tent. The "Genies"...their sentient power source, had rebelled, just as in the tales of the of the ancient city that preceded New Babbage.

"LYNN!"

I threw the weapon aside. I depleted too much energy to tesseract to Cala. I was too far away. I could only run.

I tripped on something in the sand and fell. I rolled over and stared up with my mechanical eyes at the stars, their pristine view obscured by smoke drifting from the city.

I did not sense him approach, but the shadow of Bloodwing loomed over me. His pale frame hovered, slightly indistinct. His eyes burned in crimson fury.

"Elder! Forgive me! I have failed! I have failed..."

reclamation

2011-05-04T19:08:00.000-07:00

I gathered up one of my robes and some bandages and raced out of Lynn's carriage. With a bit of self-generated illumination it was simple enough to follow the bloody footprints of my doppleganger beneath the desert stars. I found her collapsed in an alleyway between the shacks of two merchants that had shuttered their gates for the evening.

She was still breathing. She groaned in protest as I turned her on her side. As I suspected, she was bleeding out from the apertures in the small of her back meant for my engine. The same precaution Dr. Mason designed to keep me alive was now imperiling the life of...me? I addressed her in hopes she retained at least some of my faculties.

"Qlippothic. I am going to tesseract with you to Dr. Mason. He needs to install..."

"I NEED NO ONE!"

The deafening crack of an Eldritch Bolt sent me sprawling. My senses reeled as I struggled to regain control of my neural net. My double crawled over me, her eyes wide and her grin twisted in madness.

"Oh how rude of me! I'm terribly sorry. I appreciate that you've taken good care of my body while I was gone, but..." She glanced up at the crescent moon, then leaned down again to whisper where my ear would be. "This form is a bit inconvenient for my plans."

She rose, taking my folded clothes from where they fell as she did so.

"You brought me a pink loincloth?" I heard muttering incantations as she fumbled with the garments. By the time I saw my attacker's face again, the voice had dropped a register. What were my features and brown hair had turned to coarser features and a 5 o'clock shadow. A strong resemblance to Dr. Mason, but thinner and without the mustache. I heard Lynn calling out my name a few blocks away.

"If you value your friend's life, you will tell no one you saw me." He stepped on my faceplate with his bare foot as he departed. "Now go save your fellow tinkertoy. And don't forget...Uncle Marcus is watching you!"

His vicious laughter echoed in my memories as Lynn helped me to my feet.

"Did you find her?" She asked.

I shook my head. "She...did not last. She is gone."

to shuffle off this mortal coil

2011-04-28T18:53:00.000-07:00

I sat on the rug in Lynn's gypsy carriage. She watched nervously from a few paces away as I opened the chrome case and lifted a pen-sized cylinder from inside. The desert sun fell in a strong beam through the small window, illuminating dancing particles of dust that crossed its path. The light that hit the chrome reflected glowing curves across the walls.

"You said that if you take this medicine, you'll never be human again?"

I still felt the weight of the boiler unit my father fused to the small of my back. I had to be prepared for a sudden transformation at all times, he said. All it did for me in this state was ache and chafe. Was I ever completely human with this contraption attached to me?

"That is correct."

"And this is the only was to rescue your brother?"

"I'm afraid so."

She smiled gently. "It wouldn't change how I feel."

I could feel the blood rush to my face. Another human trait that I'd miss.

I pressed the tip of the cylinder to my arm. I heard a rush of air and a tingle as the nanobytes spread through to every cell...and everything went black. Was that screaming echoing from a distant mountain range?

I saw the world again through thick glass. Darkness washed away the color save for a few candles. I heard the rush of air through my boiler, and my strength slowly returned to me. I lifted my arms...articulated brass. I touched my face. A smooth metallic mask. My true face. Again.

Lynn was facing away, sobbing against the wall.

"Lynn? Do not cry. I am here. The metamorphosis..."

She turned to face me with horror in her eyes. I struggled to regain balance as I rose to my feet. Her jaw fell as she backed away.

"You're Qli? HOW? If you're really...then who...?"

She pointed towards the door, left swinging open. The bloody footprints on the carpet leading out did not escape my attention.

"Lynn? Do I even want to know...?"

frozen

2011-03-08T08:40:00.000-08:00

A pair of metal talons ripped through a canvas tent in the deep desert, shattering poles and crushing the metal inside. Shredded rugs and fabric flew off with the wind. Dented segments off brass armor glimmered as they fell in a pile with kitchen supplies and cracked picture frames containing portraits of the Mason clan. The colossal construct pointed an acrlight down at its handiwork and began to sift meticulously through the remains.

A small wooden framed picture of an earlier Qlippothic - one of a Victorian lady in her finest garments, carefully tailored to fit the coal grate on her abdomen and the twin smokestacks looming over her back - rolled clumsily away in the rising wind, tracing a line of indentations in the sand, only inches away from the ankle of the real Qlippothic. On this night she had become completely human save for the turbine surgically fastened to the small of her back, a grim necessity should she suddenly shift to a construct form with no power source at hand. Her leather and linen dress was draped by the ever-present wind around the rioutous colors the red headed gypsy she was embracing. She held her tightly not out of love, but fear.

The gypsy clutched the silver amulet hanging below her multihued scarf, whispering an enchantment of invisibility. Qli felt her skin hardening to metal, the metallic spreading from her engine in all directions until at least her hair vanished beneath her reflective mask. The beauty of the setting crimson sun behind them was ripped away by the arclight suddenly pointed towards them. No movement by the walking behemoth. Qli and Lynn's intertwined shadows stretched across the sand.

Qli did not finish scooping Lynn into her arms in the instant the monstrosity lunged at them, claws at the ready.

with a silver whistle and a golden scale

2011-02-06T07:48:00.000-08:00

I heard the distinct roar of Ash's jetpack engine outside my tent. I rushed to greet him, and remembered to bow as the local custom. My nanobytes were still malfunctioning, and I did not wish to accidentally damage him again through direct contact. He drew a parchment from his belt as his wings retracted behind him.

"The translation on this invitation is poor, but its essence is nonetheless disturbing."

I was taken aback by the twinge of anger in his normally measured voice.

"This Magistrate of yours," he continued, "is she a Heterodyne?"

I shook my head. "She has never made such a claim."

"It is not her place then to judge who is a 'true' Jäger."

"Ash... No one is questioning your service to the Jägerpatrol."

"I am a discrepancy, which must be rectified."

I demanded an elaboration.

"There is already a time-displaced Jäger in our family line. She is living proof that the brau is compatible with Mason DNA, which still resides in my soul-chip."

Before I could question him further, he spread his wings with a sandstorm and vanished in a sonic boom.

a haiku floating on the night's chill

2011-01-11T11:00:00.000-08:00

Now? I feel human.
Love's warmth sifts through my fingers
like Mondrago's sands.

Next Stop: Cala Mondrago

2011-01-07T16:46:00.000-08:00

"Are you sure this is my only chance, Father?"

"I'm afraid so, Qli. We're going to prepare you for cryogenic suspension. Keep this mask over your nose and mouth. Good. I want you count backwards from ten..."

"Qli? It's Koen. Steady now...don't get up too fast."

"Steelhead...?"

"Not anymore. We're in Cala Mondrago."

"So this is where I'll spend the rest of my days?"

"Don't make it sound like that! It's a nice little place. They've got a direct trade route with Caledon! Okay, it may not be Kittiswitch or Steelhead but it's not Babbage smog either. But you're still in the Steamlands. I've checked the place out. They've got a club and a cafe and some Spark-shops. You won't run out of oil or food."

"But my family? My friends?"

"Hey hey hey hey! You're still a little off kilter from being frozen. I told you they trade with Caledon? I've seen a lot of familiar faces here escaping the winter. I even saw Emperor Squid at the cafe!"

"Steelcobra Calamari?"

"Yes! And the folks here are real friendly. There's a...what did they call her? Well she's a princess. Her name's Bianca. You should go talk to her. Maybe she can get you a job at the club."

"Who is going to want to see me like this?"

He doubled over laughing.

"Everybody? Listen...we don't have any monsters to fight at the moment and the Revenge is still in drydock. I'm going to stay here with you. I'll be fine here. This is just like my Mom's place in Heliopolis. Except it's not a dictatorship. And I don't have a legion of servants. But that's beside the point..."

That was three weeks ago. One demonstration later, and I'm a performer at the Laughing Djinn. Please come and visit me if you would.

Best wishes for the New Year.

Sincerely,

Qlippothic

When it's cold outside am I here in vain?

2010-12-25T07:49:00.000-08:00

I stepped out of the Consulate into Steelhead square. I heard the wet crunch of snow beneath my bare feet and felt the sting against bare skin. Flakes floated silently all around me. Everything was coated in white, amplifying the glow of the gaslamps and flickering candles in windows.

I have never felt the cold. I have never smelled the crisp winter air or the scent of pine needles. Not long ago I could have calculated the density of the snowflakes and recorded the patterns of every flake. But now, it was simply overwhelming.

"You'll catch your death of cold out here. Go inside, child."

Red wings wrapped around me like a cloak, radiating warmth. I had just enough space to turn to behold the Elder's face of alabaster, kohl and crimson.

"But...but how...?"

"Is this not the time for miracles, Sweet Qli?"

His wings grew translucent from a growing brilliance nearby.

"Beg pardon," interrupted the angel. "I have a delivery for Miss Qlippothic from Velvel's Shanghai Bazaar?"

save me from the nothing i've become

2010-12-08T07:20:00.000-08:00

I watched the Sephiroth vanish one by one, pulled away by the angel. The mindscape of my introspection mode plunged into darkness. Were the nightmares still cutting through the lenses? No. There were no sparks from their cutting tools. I've lost fear. What part of me will dissolve next in this poison? How much more can I lose before I cease to be?

I feel? Warmth? A heartbeat?

Well, well, well. At least I won't die alone.

"Marcus?"

Yes. I am trapped inside this abomination as well.

Light again. In the lenses are irises not my own.

"You are...wearing my faceplate?"

I grabbed the first thing I could find. I didn't know you were still using it. I hope you don't mind. It is keeping my soul intact a while
longer.

"Does this mean you are possessing me?"

On the contrary. You have nothing left to possess. And my astral form can't pierce this...mess. If anything, it is you who are possessing me. Look closely. I need to show you something.

Holograms inside the orbs. Face to face across a chessboard. Crossed épées behind wire masks.

Should you survive, deliver these to my brother if you would be so kind.

"How can this be? You and he were raised separately."

So we both assumed. But only now as our psychic barriers dissolve do I remember what Father forced us to forget. We would have murdered each other. It was the the most humane choice.

"Why is there always bloodlust between you? This cannot entirely be the fault of the bloodline!"

There was...an incident.

"Show me. I will not judge you."

Shadows. Rending of lace. Hands pinning declawed paws.

"By the Founder..."

She was a catalyst, for me as well as Darien.

"Do you...regret this?"

Do you regret having a brother?

"Are you saying that Koen is...yours?"

Half a chance...

I felt his soul starting to fade.

"Hang on!"

I cannot. You have no shell, and this one is left behind. I bequeath this body to you. Use my powers to harness what's left of your healing factor. Do with it what you will. Good luck.

The double helix rose and spiraled around me. I did not even have a moment to protest. My perceptions shifted to the other side of the mask, staring through living eyes to where my image was blurring from metal to flesh. The chromosomes were damaged, but repairable. I dispatched healing nanobytes - which appeared to me as copies of my previous metallic form. A scan of the blood circulation revealed somewhere, something was dripping reanimation serum into these veins, along with more malevolent cells. This form would have become a drone had I not taken the previous owner's place. That is when I noticed the Pandoran cells, swarming through like bees searching relentlessly through the vines of a trellis.

"Stop that this instant! I do NOT need GILLS!"

the world is just illusion trying to change you

2010-11-10T12:22:00.000-08:00

My boiler exploded from the demands of prying Ya Yimawa's sharklike maw open with all my limbs until it cracked. Nothing I have ever encountered - from the inferno of Erebus to the radioactive wastes of Earth's devastated future - could rival the horror of what I saw inside that beast. How quickly, then, did the souls of its victims fly out to the freedom of their promised afterlives! Their gratefulness whispered as they vanished was more than worth the cost to this, my shredded chassis. Ama had worked her magic and destroyed its soulcage just as Dr. Beck's spirit escaped.

My last victim, Shiny Toy!

A sickening snap. Loss of connection to body. A fraction of a second in that primordial abyss before the monster discorporated, and my elevation dropped. I landed on the wreckage that was once my own abdomen, saving me the indignity of sinking into the polluted muck. Power supply was fading quickly. Last instructions to Ama.

Closing cranial display. Adjusting to internal perception. Standby...

I perceive myself as intact, but I am not actually whole again. This spherical chamber I am in, full of damaged machinery spewing steam and smoke, with pipes spiralling around the Sephiroth that glow brightly above me like a celestial chandalier, is not literally the inside of my skull. But it does give me an accurate representation of how tenuous my existance has now become.

The gyroscope rolls wildly. I hold on tightly as the craft tumbles over itself again and again. Through the twin portholes in the outline of my eyes I see I am rolling into the water, mingling with human bones and filth. This can only mean that the boxcar is sliding into the bay. The Revenge would have no choice but to cut the air vent. There is pounding outside the chamber, from all directions.

There is...a mob outside the portals? Impossible! How can this be?

Who are they?

I see Bloodwing, cursing me as a traitor as he strikes his sword against the glass. The same sword he used to pierce my reactor core.

I see Grandfather in the black uniform from his dystopia of New Erebus, his eyes glowing beneath his goggles as he patiently grinds an energy blade into the translucent barrier.

The gentleman in the drab gray uniform with the brass buttons? An agent of the Labs. Carrying a warrant for my family's capture.

The other eye - there is Doctor Mason in his labcoat, I see from the tic in his brow and the glow behind his goggles that he demands to perform more destructive experiments on me.

Koen in his sleek ebony fur bloodied at the tips, scraping his claws down the glass, eyes burning red as coals and hissing as he displays his vampiric fangs.

Behind him, a pale Aleister in his outdated and frayed coat, gesturing for me to inspect the new porcelain skull he will place me in. Complete with fangs for extracting blood...to deliver to him.

Behind them swarms of wasp drones and Qlippothic clones.

Why would my subconscious be attempting to torment me? Especially in a survival situation such as this?

A chemical readout develops on one corroded panel. The water in this flooding chamber is polluted...from Ya Yimawa. When his body dissolved, its conents mingled with these waters.

I am stewing in the gastric juices of a soul eater. Much like the jellyfish, the death of the creature does not render its venom inert. Despite the images beyond the eyes, it know the toxins have already made contact with my soul chip. If I am not rescued it will corrode the circuitry that defines my psyche, and my identity will...dissolve.

I have never seen fit to pray for aid from undetectable sources. But now, it is my only recourse, if only a distraction.

I can hear their voices now. My voice quavers.

The Lord is my...

The Revenge on Patrol

2010-09-16T06:48:00.000-07:00

We have come to an agreement with Steelhead's Mayor, Totallunar Eclipse. In return for supplying the Bloodwing's Revenge with sunstones from the town's mines, we are assisting in the hunt for the murderous creature known as "Steal Head." Take comfort in the knowledge that in addition to the Steelhead militia, the Wulfenbach Jagerpatrol and the religious paramilitary known as the S.W.A.T. team, you will have three armed gynoids patrolling the streets.

Koen will fly sorties over the city in the Revenge scanning for anything unusual, and also pilot the ship in submersible mode, with the hope of catching the beast off guard as Dr. Beck did earier.

Xavael will be incognito among the populace and assist in the investigation.

Jeremiah will not be joining this operation. At the request of Koen's siblings, he will accompany them to Erebus. He fully intends to return to investigate the Illuminautilus sighting, but discovering the fate of the Wasp Queen and Bloodwing takes precedence.

We also wish to point out to residents that Velvel's Shanghai Bazaar has imported several crates of high-quality firearms and ammunition for your self-defense, available for reasonable prices.

I was created in Steelhead. It is my my birthplace. We shall help rid your town of this menace, my fellow citizens. Stay alert, and carry on.

don't hold back

2010-09-04T07:39:00.000-07:00

With a violent jolt the Bloodwing's Revenge shifted from the smoggy night over Seraph City and emerged in the late-morning sky over the ocean of the Steamlands. From the cockpit I watched Nova's ship, the Sixes and Sevens, squeeze through non-Euclidian space with her Mythos artifact to emerge on my starboard side. I was still uneasy with her devotion to the Outer Gods, the Eye would surely mangled the mind of any untrained human who watched the ship arrive, much less travel through with it.

There was a burst of static and distortion on my Marconi transmitter. I saw a flying ironclad looming in the distance, its engines and still red-hot cannons cradling it in a white shroud of smoke that trailed in the breeze.

"This is Captain Hassanov of of Battlecruiser Hassanov. Unknown ship, please identify." I recognized Iason Hassanov's accent and deep calm voice very well.

"This is Captain Sakigake of the Sixes and Sevens to Hassanov, ready to assist. Over."

"Captain Qlippothic of the Bloodwing's Revenge, I confirm Captain Sakigake is an ally, over."

"Yes, I remember you Nova. Welcome back, all of you. Misson Status: Wasp fleet destroyed. Some survivors left in field, estimate two, maybe three hundred. Wasp Queen still in field, chasing Bloodwing and...angelic companion. Wasp portal still exists, but no further movements to or from. Hassanov pulling back for refueling and rearmaments. Good luck, Over."

I pressed the communicator one last time as Koen prepared himself to jump from the ship with the Regent's staff. "Roger that, Hassanov. Thank you for your help. Over and out."

I made eye contact through her porthole as we hovered. I gave the hand signal, and her saucer craft silently raced off in a flash towards the Wasp Queen.

I engaged the engines and accelerated upwards towards the portal. "Koen! Prepare to jump in twenty seconds!"

"Gotcha, Sis!"

there's a big black sky over my town

2010-09-02T22:14:00.000-07:00

The longer I stay in this divergent future, the more I feel that something is wrong here. As I gaze down at this version of Seraph City, the Sephiroth...I cannot calculate it. But there is disharmony.

Of course my thoughts wander to my doomed double of this world. Did you submit to Father's deranged experiments willingly? Were you coerced? Modified?

Did you feel regrets wash over you as your the shells of your spirit burst one by one? You achieved free will, and you dedicated your life selflessly to protect the Steamlands. Nearly all were grateful. Nearly.

The slap of her gloved hand across my cheek possibly broke her hand. But the damage to me, while hidden, was strong.

"Stay away from my fiance!" she screamed. But it was he who had fawned for my attention with trinkets and verses. It was he was deceptive, and not only to me. But she did not care.

"Stay away!" She sneered at the engine and twin smokestacks fastened to my back that allowed me to move. "Look at you!" She pointed with a trembling hand. "You're not even a REAL woman!"

"But at least, Lady ________, I know how to act like one."

My fists wrapped around the railing of the deck of the Revenge so tightly that I nearly bent the metal.

I have found love in the timeless oases, but as replenishing - as nurturing as it was...the infinite desert is that more punishing when your heart is iron.

I glance at Nova and Six through the portholes of their vessel. I quickly look away. I take the stairs below deck.

Of course I'll help my family. Of course I'll help my friends.

I see the glow of my eyes reflected back at me as I read the letter of marque framed on the wall.

Ash can dedicate his life to self-sacrifice if he wishes. He may just grow out of it as I have.

But a pirate takes what she needs.

*My thanks to Sheriff Fuzzball Ortega for finding this musical selection.

The briefing

2010-08-24T06:20:00.000-07:00

Koen finally wandered back to the shipyard where Nova, Six and I were cleaning up after upgrading the Bloodwing's Revenge>. I was closing the panels on the engine core when the Time Window powered up by itself. I was ready to run a diagnostic when Koen jumped below deck. His expression was more somber than I had expected.

"Hey Qli. There's someone I want you to meet."

Clawed feet dusted with gray steadily descended by half-steps, aided by the balance of a staff. I was going to warn him about the rotten fourth stair, but he leaned his staff forward an extra step and gingerly hopped over it without my prompting. Once he reached the floorboards, he slowly spread his crimson wings. Could this really be the Koen I know? The crimson wings of his station weighed heavily upon him. Youthful impertinence was replaced by quiet sorrow. My sensors shuddered from the power radiating from him. This Koen was Regent of House Bloodwing!

"Hello Qlippothic. I like what you've done with the old bird. Please, no need to kneel."

He handed me his staff.

"I built this to destroy the hellgate. Koen has to drive the blade in the side of the portal to disperse the energy into the Void."

"Understood, Regent."

After he departed, Nova activated the Eye of Y__ S______ in the Sixes and Sevens and I connected my Galvanic Tesseractor to the Time Window and slipped between times back to the Steamlands.

Rebuilding the Bloodwing's Revenge!

2010-08-06T10:16:00.000-07:00

It seemed a bit absurd at times. I was working as hard as possible to preserve the original elements of the ship while Nova and Six were relentlessly replacing its 17th century clockwork systems with 20th century innovations.

Luckily I found a hidden drawer in Aleister Mason's writing desk which contained a privateer's letter of marque from George Washington himself, authorizing the Bloodwing's Revenge to "assail all foes of Liberty and the Republic on the high seas and in the open skies." Another correspondence granted our former captain the land that became the Mason plantation in Baltimore. It seems the first President knew of Aleister's immortality, since both contracts have no end date.

Now where has Koen wandered off to?

yesterday's news

2010-06-21T09:54:00.000-07:00

I looked up from the faded headline towards the alley where the little "blind" girl had escaped. In the shadows, I saw her small luminescent green eyes blinking at me as she ripped away her soiled newsgirl apron, flooding the alley with the light from her gaslamp heart.

"Wren."

Before I formulate whether I should thank her or punish her, she darted down the alley and out of view. Her glow faded and winked out with the sound of clattering manhole cover.

Do not envy the time traveler, Dear Reader. It is a terrible burden with moral dilemmas behind every turn.

Do not ask me of the details of that newspaper. I scanned it completely, then set it aflame with my furnace. As the ashes floated into the wind, I systematically erased the details from my memory.

~~MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR BLOODWING AND JEREMIAH MASON...~~

~~STOCK MARKET PLUMMETS AS...~~

~~DR. DARIEN MASON BUILDS...~~

~~Relations between Steelhead and New Babbage continue to deteriorate as...~~

Except the data of immediate importance upon my return, of course.

...the weakened hive was finally repelled by the combined efforts of...

...the hydrogen-powered airships were especially vulnerable to...

I be ethical, but I'm not stupid.

In the land of steel and chrome

2010-06-19T06:39:00.000-07:00

While Nova and Six were repairing the ship, I took the opportunity to survey Seraph City. It is a beautiful place, for certain. . Cranes thousands of feet tall constantly add to sky-scraping buildings. There is powder on the concrete. It is rapidly expanding.

Everything, including the art and the architacture, is streamlined and industrialized. I even saw a machine called an automat designed to feed laborers in the manner of an assembly line! The fashions are...more basic and much more severe than back in Caledon. But I will have to wear something to blend in on my return trip.

I was surprised to see old faces here. Dr. Oblensky's face was on a poster! My goodness, is he immortal? I ran into a friendly face as well, Sir Edward Pearse! He was managing the construction of a new club of his there called the Seraph. He said I may even have an opportunity to host there, for old times sake! Beyond inquiring as to Lady Christine's health, I avoided asking as to the fate of the Masons and the rest of the Steamlands in this timeline, nor did he volunteer such information.

On the way back to the repair dock, I was blocked by a litttle girl in urchin's rags and pigtails, wearing the black glasses reserved for the blind. She was trying to sell a yellowed, frayed newspaper in an outstretched hand while shaking her cup. It was a sad sight indeed. I dropped a few New Babbage coins I had into her cup (I have a small compartment for change) and accepted the paper. She immediately bolted into the nearby alley with far more agility than a blind girl should.

I looked down at the newspaper and opened. It was...THE STEELHEAD GAZETTE? The headlines turned my furnace cold:

BATTLE OVER STEAMLAND SKIES!

BLOODWING SLAIN BY DEMON WASPS!

end of the line

2010-06-08T17:12:00.000-07:00

"Qli, what's our jump status?"

Koen's voice sounded weary, and perhaps a bit deeper through the horn.

"We've shifted through the paradigm barrier and completed the fateline track."

"Good. My zero chamber is starting to decay. Prepare to phase!"

With his alchemical powers running their course, we had no choice but to land in the 20th century. I called behind me to Captain Aleister.

"Prepare to phase! Sixty seconds and counting!"

The Captain flinched as arcs of electricity again spread out from my frame across the entirety of the ship. He grumbled in an obscure dialect about not being able to reach his coffin (since Koen's zero chamber could not be disturbed) as he stowed away his wooden tools and buckled himself into the chair of the weapons systems for the Bloodwing's Revenge. The chair was bedecked with and surrounded by a bewildering array of dials, pulleys, levers and plungers that looked like they were purloined from da Vinci's estate sale. (He assured however that they were once Galileo's.) He began to furiously wind a large brass crank with both arms, drawing forth the hemispheres of a wooden cupola that would encase him and protect him from sunlight. That is, until the crank seized up halfway through the process.

"ACH!"

"Thirty seconds, Captain! I cannot disrupt the phase!"

He pulled on the crank with all of his undead strength, bracing his boot against the metal column. A nut shattered and the crank came off in his hands.

"NEIN!"

He tossed the dislodged crank aside and ripped the rusted lock off a battered wooden chest. He pulled out a shredded mess of dusty black canvas surrounded by a cloud of moths.

"Mein Gott..."

"Phasing NOW!"

The swirling darkness around the ship evaporated as the midday of a cloudless sky bathed the ship in the sun's brilliance. I began powering down my Galvanic Tesseractor. I was suddenly distracted by an unexpected display of shimmering light from the cupola.

"Captain? You're...SPARKLING?!?"

With a weary and stoic expression he rubbed his pale cheek with a tattered glove. "Ja, das is vant to happen just before I..."

Before he could finish his sentence he exploded in a gout of flame.

"CAPTAIN!!!"

The primary airbag above the ship, only barely repaired during the cross-time transit, immediately disintegrated. The cables that held the balloon stretched upwards with vestigal scraps of canvas like impromptu flagpoles, indicating we had immediately begun to plummet. I only noticed the gaping hole in the deck from the explosion when an ebony-and-scarlet furred neko floated helplessly upwards from it, flailing his limbs and staring back at me with crimson eyes in shock and terror.

At the same time in the dark place known as Lost Angels the androids Nova and Six were pulled into a vortex of time and energy. The cross-time tear opened a rift into their world and pulled them in, disrupting their physical shells and memories.

Nova's short interlude as Qli-2 allowed her to retain some memory of the Bloodwing family and its many relations, but her old powers and possessions were stripped from her as the many-fold realties played havoc with her systems.

One moment she was a human girl in a far away land, the next an elf warrior serving her Queen, still in another a mechanical swordmistress beloved of a minotaur. All of the realms of possibility and timelines changed and warped her until at last she was drawn into Seraph City and part of the team: Nova and Six's Salvage.

Six tumbled through the vortex, time tearing at her like the claws of a raging beast. Years ago some deviant had modifed her, by shoe-horning the pleasure/pain center of a succubus's brain into her systems as an experiment to make her a better pleasure model. This had grown and became a soul inhabiting Six's chassis. That was now ripped from her and cast out into the endless seas of time. Nothing had prepared Six for the vortex or time shifts or the shock of losing an integral system part. Her electronic eyes flickered wildy then went black as she entered a failsafe mode shutting her down until repairs could be made, and time became her repairman...

Six awoke in a junkyard looking down at the spanner she had dropped. She swore under her breath and looked back to find Nova had just wound her key again " I can not complete my work while constantly needing to be wound!" She reached down for the spanner going back to work on a small airship she had built specially to salvage and tow larger air ships.

Nova looked up to see the Revenge plummeting towards the bay and yelled for Six to, "Crank her up and lets go save that ship!"

Both droids, changed in appearance, function and indeed reality itself soared towards the Revenge and quickly looped their towing lines around the ship. A great shuddering of gears and a few curses from Nova later, and the "Sixes and Sevens" (named after each girl's unit numbers) pulled the Revenge out of its nosedive and brought it safely to rest on the tarmac.

the space between times

2010-05-20T07:45:00.000-07:00

A lateral jump out of the Hive fleet was out of the question, and we knew it. Not with a hellgate that large and so close. We could have easily emerged on the wrong side. At the absolute worst, we could have caught on the portal boundary and ripped it wider in our wake.

Koen was right. A forward jump was our only chance. And now this entire clockwork ship is sailing through the torrents of time. Somehow, Koen knew our powers combined could make this happen. I have retrofitted myself to the ship's helm like a living masthead. For all intents and purposes, this ship is now a TARDIS, with myself as its core. Koen's alchemy is shielding us from the energies swirling around us, and he is using the Time Window technology our vampiric captain pioneered to navigate us to a city outside the Age of Steam.

I can hear Aleister cursing at Koen for shredding his carpet in shrill squeaks while he nails copper plates over the holes the Hive ripped out of the hull. He is clinging to underside of the ship in his giant bat form, wings stretched over the hull for support while while he hammers away with digigrade claws.

I have never stopped to admire the beauty of the vastness of hypertime while tesseracting alone. Certainly not when Nova and I were holding onto each other for...

Of course! I'm activating a homing beacon to the frequency only my sister Qli-2 shared. She vanished without a trace during the Pogrom. She must have escaped to hypertime.

Qli-2? Sister? Are you there? Did you find a safe place? Did you find your way back to your homeline as Nova? We have regrouped. Things are not the same. But we are strong again.

We would miss you for the trials ahead. Follow this beacon to our ship if you can. Or meet us in Seraph City. Or just give a sign you still exist.

Qli...Qlippothic Prime signing off. Message set to repeat.

the swarm

2010-04-24T19:26:00.000-07:00

I could have dispatched the wasp-creatures myself, but the steering mechanism for the Bloodwing's Revenge was so dilapidated that I linked my nervous system directly into the ship to handle the navigation entirely by myself. If I disengaged, the hundreds of gears connected to chart our course would spin out of control. It would take me weeks to recalibrate while floating helplessly at the cloud level.

"YOU ARE IN VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL AIRSHIP TREATIES! DISEMBARK IMMEDIATELY!", I thundered in my most authoritative tone. I am not sure that they understood human speech, but the amplification of my warning and the glare of my arc-light only served to anger them. They advanced towards me, their wings droning menacingly as they drew their revolvers.

"QLIPPOTHIC! LIGHTS OFF!", shouted Aleister from below deck. I complied, shutting my cranial aperture and surrendering the deck to the absolute darkness of night inside thick enveloping clouds. Perhaps it would be better if I did not see my own demise and and that of the rest of the crew.

I glimpsed the pale blue sparks of enchanted rapiers slicing between an invader's segments. Aleister's fanged scowl hovered in my optic sensors between the split seconds that the cloak of the cloud's total darkness again descended upon the deck. A panicked shot from a wasp-revolver deflected off my shoulder harmlessly.

He seemed to be everywhere at once. There were so many flashes of light that the battle unfolded like a flipping roll of pictures inside a penny-arcade booth. Aleister was soon surrounded by dozen of the wasps, each lunging and slicing the air with four arms clutching straight blades in their talons as long and as sharp as the stingers glistening with venom that curled forward from their abdomens.

"GET OFF MY SHIP!"

In rapid succession the wasp blades - and the chitinous arms clutching them - fell clattering to the deck. Severed sheets of gauzy wings caught their last fight in the airship's wake and vanished. The drones of the wasps with their abdomens slashed open were louder and even more unsettling as they spent in a last series of bitter clicks choking from their bloody mandibles.

Aleister flipped up the shield on a gas lantern built into the deck. He surveyed the carnage of a score of the beasts mangled and twitching in pieces, oozing black liquid across the boards. The vampire examined the tarry substance stretching across his off-hand sword, flaring his nostrils in mild disgust.

"Zis...zis ist ichor. Zey are from der untervurld."

A brass periscope bounced upwards from behind the speaking horn that arched over the ship's wheel. I spun my head forwards again in alarm to see the slitted cornea of Koen's red eye staring back at me through the fishbowl-shaped lens. The universal joint craned past me down at the corpses, and judging from the erratic turns of the lens, Koen was twitching excitedly.

"Their equipment is uniform and customized to their species", I noted as I looked down at a wasp revolver from where it skidded to rest by my ankle. It was little more than a hexagonical puzzle-tube of steel, obviously mass-produced by a race fixated on utility and with no concept of a comfortable grip, since it was of course perfectly designed an exoskeletal claw. "Decidedly not a hodgepdge of human pirates' tools."

"Und zey reek of sulphur...just arrived...zere ist a Hellgate near here!"

The vampire was correct. Even through the freezing winds I could now detect the highly elevated levels sulphur in the atmosphere.

"A hellgate in the middle of a cloud?" chirped Koen. "Don't you need a cave for that?"

"Qlippothic. Climb over der cloud cover."

"Aye, Captain."

I heard a clatter from below deck as I altered course and the periscope dropped. A second later I heard a scrambling of claws and the periscope hopped up again. "Guys..." interrupted Koen as the redundant wheel of the ship leaned towards me on its own accord. "These insects look like Vesprium soldiers, they come from the Great Hive that borders Erebus. But they've never been known to stray from the..." As we broke through the roof of the clouds, the periscope unexpectedly jerked upwards, swerving about unevenly as it scanned the skies. The blanket of stars and the bright artery of the Milky way coated the deck in soft light. Koen's utterance of "Oh...shit..." was barely heard under the deafening buzz.

We erupted from the clouds in the middle of throng of airships, each one dwarfing the Bloodwing's Revenge in size, suspended from hive-shaped balloons, all pointed westward in tight formation. Their courses could be traced back to the hovering red disc burning angrily in the night sky. Even as we watched, another pair of Vesprium ships passed through the portal from the skies of Hell into our own space.

Captain Aleister broke the silence. "Zis ist no pirate's armada, mein kinder...ist an invasion fleet..."

a hive of scum and villainy

2010-04-14T11:40:00.000-07:00

I manned the wheel at the helm of the old skyship at the evening shift. Each time the Bloodwing's Revenge skimmed through a heavy cloud that reduced my visibility to the wheel, it left a sheen of ice on my metallic frame that quickly evaporated from the heat of my internal combustion. A garish brass horn curved over the wheel for the convenience of barking orders below deck, or in Aleister's case give orders to the pilot during daylight hours. I can understand the life of a vampire being a lonely one, but I already had my share of his rambling when I was his thrall.

"...und I must say, Herrin Qlippothic, you are handlink der gallon very vell. Vere did you learn such tings?"

"One of the most fearsome pirates of this age taught me how to handle a ship, Captain..."

I could hear a bit of my pride showing through. Before I met Captain Bohemia I was afraid to even go near the water.

"...and it was easy enough to carry that knowledge to airships. I flew many of sorties of CIRRUS Fire Brigade dirigibles for Caledon."

Indeed, I was used to having an air balloon looming over me as I navigated. Though I never would have used a canvas this vessel used, which was in such dilapidated condition I was amazed it held air at all.

In a fit of nostalgia I accessed my memories of Midnight. She taught me the name of every rope and sail. Leather gloves pressed my brass hands to the spokes of the wheel. Hard to port...Starboard...

I shook my head. Something else was making a wrong noise on the ship. "Captain Aleister? Why are the propellers buzzing so loudly? Do we need more oil?"

"Vas? The propellers are off! Ve are sailink on a strong vind!"

"Then what..."

I heard several sets of legs land on deck behind me. I rotated my head fully and opened the chamber in my forehead, letting my Sephiroth illuminate the fog.

Several human-sized bipedial insects flinched as I blinded them. Their chitin were black and yellow. Their double-sets of wings jutted from their backs like blades in an intimidating X. They wore only leather harnesses, from which they drew their straight blades and pistols...

there's no telling just now what we have in store

2010-03-23T11:39:00.000-07:00

Qlippothic lay in the table for weeks as his father and his gas-fueles urchin toiled day and not upon rows of machinery. She had tried to reason with him, to tell him his theories were not sufficiently tested. That the results could not be controlled. For this he immobilized her. For daring to try to contact outsiders for help, he had disconnected her voice.

Even though she had free will, she had never defied her creators, save when the fate of the Earth itself was at stake. Now, she was beginning to regret her obedience.

"Qli? You awake?"

[[AUDIO: YOUNG MALE NEKO. ACCENT NEW BABBAGE URCHIN HIGH STEELHEAD TRACE- CONSISTENT. TONE OF FAMILIARITY - CONSISTENT. AGE - INCONSISTENT. IDENTITY INCONCLUSIVE.]]

The scruffy urchin's face leaned over, into her field of vision

[[VISUAL: YOUNG MALE SPECIES NEKO. EYES CRIMSON FELINE - CONSISTENT. FACIAL FUR NONE - INCONSISTENT (Developmental?) FACIAL: 80% (ADJUST FOR DEVELOPMENT) WHISKER PATTERN - CONSISTENT. EAR PATTERN BLACK WITH RED TIPS - BLOODTAIL CONFIRMED. TAIL UNSEEN. IDENTITY CONFIRM: 75%?]]

"Can ya hear me Qli? Flash your eyes again or somethin' Hun!."

[[ACCENT TRACE BALTIMORE VIA FATHER ID 80% - PREVIOUS ROOF INTERLOPER CONFIRMED THROUGH ADMISSION TRESSPASSING BEHAVIOR: CONSISTENT ID 85% - ACKNOWLEDGING COMMUNICATIONS.]]

"Great! Listen, I don't know how to fix you, but I know someone who can. We were gonna break in and bust you out later, but since Dad and his walking oven kid are out of town..."

[[WE...?]]

"...we're busting you outta here before he breaks you and blows up the whole city. No, really. You can thank me later."

He drew a knife of dull grey metal from his boot and began cutting the cables linking her to the machinery in a shower of sparks. Qli's eyes began to pulse furiously in Morse Code to chastise him.

"Not listening!"

The boy stood over Qli's table and waved his arms upwards. A black box on a cable lowered with a crash, sounding the alarm systems of the Consulate.

The neko tugged at the sides of the box that fell beside them until it began to unfold by itself into a spider-like machine that leaped onto her table and braced it securely.

[[CLANK CONSTRUCTION: WROUGHT IRON. DESIGN: ANTIQUATED]]

The boy in turn hopped onto the iron construct and held fast to the cable as it spooled upwards, lifting him and Qlippothic.

[[TAIL PATTERN CONSISTENT: ID 95%. CLANK IDENTIFIED: EARLY DESIGN SKYSHIP CLAW - CUSTOM DESIGN]]

From her vantage point, she could see the wooden hull of the airship looming larger as the sky slowly rotated.

[[SHIP ID CONFIRMED: BLOODWING'S REVENGE. LAST KNOWN OWNER: ALEISTER MASON. CHANCE OF MISFORTUNE ON CURRENT MISSION: 100%]]

Reunion

2010-02-10T12:21:00.000-08:00

I finally managed to get a lock on the Caravel's homing signal, just as the flames overtook Ash and myself. The heat almost compromised my armor before my galvanic energy field encircled us. We reappeared outside the airlock. Had we materialized in inside the ship, our radiant heat would have sure caused an explosion inside the vessel. As the absolute cold of space dissipated the red heat of our glowing shells, Ash tried to hail Dr. Mason through Marconi transmission.

[Gematria, no response.]

We opened the airlock manually. Dr. Mason was not on board. We did however find his final transmission.

"Five months, Ash? He's been gone for that long? And you made no attempt to recover him?"

"I had strict orders to find you first, Gematria."

I shook my head. "I had to endure the taunts of those selfish creatures mutilating my name for far too long. Since, it seems, my Sister Qli-2 is no more, I will re-assume my given title of Qlippothic Projects."

"As you wish. We may now begin our search for Dr. Mason."

The video link buzzed as a wavering image took shape on the cathode ray monitor. "That will not be necessary, my children!"

I pressed my hand to the screen, staring up at his magnified features. Even through the distortions, facial recognition was stable at 85%. I recognized most of the laboratory equipment, and was surprised by the familiarity of the artwork behind him.

"Father? Can this be? Instrument readings tell me your coordinates are..."

"Yes, Qlippothic. They are correct. Do you honestly think I would let a bumbling world-dictatorship permanently derail my research? I need your assistance here, Qli. Ash, please monitor the energy readings from the Caravel. This shall be our family's finest hour!"

Extraction

2010-02-03T05:54:00.000-08:00

Against my will, Ash tore me from the morass of circuitry and fluid-lines of the my charges. To be honest, he nearly tore my arm from its ball joint! My brother had used his exo-suit to drill his way straight down to intersect with the tunnel accessing the chamber where I was held. We could only estimate the size and speed of the nuclear self-destruct sequence, so Ash left his exo-suit behind in our haste. We fired our galvanic engines and shot upwards out of the fissure Ash had created.

The Timekeepers left a crater over where their factory once stood as their sole legacy. The ambient radiation from the fallout of the Timekeepers' first and final war interfered with the homing signal from the Clockwork Caravel. Without a solid lock, tesseracting to orbit was far too dangerous. We raced upwards through the toxic soup that was once an atmosphere. A flash below us signaled critical mass. The shockwave wreathed in nova-heat flames rippled in a hemisphere from the crater, rapidly consuming what air was left, and threatening to overtake us in a matter of seconds.

Flatline

2009-10-24T09:04:00.000-07:00

The torso carapace of the intruder hinged upwards, beaming the light towards the domed ceiling. The refraction downwards was more diffused, equivalent to a Caledon summer day. I smiled as I recognized the figure at the controls.

"Hello, Ash." He nodded as he smiled and removed his goggles. True to form, he stuck to formalities while on assignment.

"Identification positive. Commencing extraction." He extended an iron claw, offering a lift into the rather cramped cockpit of the mecha.

"Negative. I cannot abandon these sentients. To do so would constitute genocide..."

"Your agreement with the Timekeepers is null and void. They have already committed genocide."

I gasped. "Against whom?"

"Themselves. Soon after we lost contact with you, the Timekeeper cities shifted operations from research to weapons and countermeasures, and attacked each other. Without their prime directive they assumed the selfish traits of the organics they were once sworn to protect."

As I pondered the hubris of the Timekeepers and prepared a profound monologue on the foolishness of artificial life forms mimicking the faults of their creators, the medical equipment in the room begin to flicker and throw off sparks.

"Ash," I cried. "When you breached the vault you compromised the environmental containment unit! The survivors are dying!"

In their tanks, they flailed their tentacles helplessly as the wailing grew to a deafening shriek, cut short piece by piece with a quick rattle and silence.

"It is their fault for becoming overdependent upon their machines to begin with," Ash said coldly. "Their fate no longer concerns...is that a nuclear chain reaction detonation sequence I hear?"

"Yes, Ash. Did you conclude that I remained here solely out of compassion? That is exactly why their health concerns us!"

TO BE CONTINUED

Interruption

2009-10-05T12:14:00.000-07:00

The Timekeepers had sealed me in their underground vault with the survivors of their Builder race. They were a one hundred and forty-four loathsome, sybaritic invertebrates wallowing in brackish pools of absinthe, barely retaining a wisp of sentience. The Timekeepers' intentions became clear to me far too late. I was imprisoned to be a surrogate caretaker for their Builders, leaving the Timekeepers the freedom to create new Directives of their own.

The only light was the deep green aura from the heating units in the vats. It took me days to unravel the morass of copper and rubber tubing that kept the glass vats at exacting temperatures, and supplied the Builders with the proper nutrients. I will spare you, Dear Reader, from a description of the unending howls of these forever demanding, ungrateful beings.

My own Directives, in the meantime, compelled me to assist these pathetic creatures. The very qualities that made me an effective Fire Captain bound me to their vats for two months.

My droll existence was suddenly interrupted when I noticed the spark and telltale hiss of a superheated ether torch outlining the frame of the vault. I kept my distance as the smoke from melting steel rose to the top of the hemispherical chamber. I held my ground with the Builder vats to my back as the vault door fell forwards with a deafening crash. The howling of the Builders grew so load and shrill I feared my ears would burst.

A huge bipedal construct crouched and stepped through the portal, standing to its full height of twelve feet. I winced as a magnesium lantern placed where the construct's head would be scanned the room, then aimed downwards to focus squarely upon me.

Planetfall

2009-08-02T08:24:00.000-07:00

Dr. Mason has asked me to investigate an industrialized but apparently abandoned planet. As general practice I avoid wearing animal products. Time travel using the Galvanic Tesseractor is not safe for animal tissue, especially living tissue. Not for the least of which they generally are not sufficiently fireproof for my needs.

I arrive in what seems to be an industrial park. I activate my sensory integration switch to begin recording.

[/caption]
Simple gardening counterpoints the industrial sprawl. The architecture carries geometric themes throughout, modular yet intricate. Designs may be instructions for installation. The factories were built to be aesthetically pleasing. If profit was their overriding factor I would have not moved in closer to investigate. No signs of industrial decay or vandalism. In fact, no signs of human habitation. Not even furniture. Aside form the gardening the only sign of recent activity are the marks of thin rimmed wheels on the roads and in the factories.

The doors to the factory have closed behind me. Sounds of mechanized movement on all sides...

Exile

2009-06-18T12:44:00.000-07:00

It has been twelve days since the Dr. Mason, Ash and myself evacuated Mason Labs during the Linden raid. Ash and I have been working diligently to complete the Gygax II from its location in the Deep Ether. Lack of supplies requires improvisation with existing equipment, even sacrificing parts of our own construct forms to maintain the vessel's integrity. Only the Control Room is currently pressurized, and the Father finds it claustrophobic.

Ash and I are...adjusting. This will not be easy for any of us.

We have tesseracted Dr. Mason down to the nearest inhabitable planet, OSGrid, while we continue building. He is searching for and gathering supplies to complete the vessel as per the blueprints. He has found a Victorian outpost, Quirm, where we hope he will acclimate. We are also in negotiations with the authorities of two other worlds, Gatheryn and Blue Mars, for refugee status.

We thought he was adjusting to his new situation, but recent news, on Foundation Day no less, has angered him immensely. He has altered the engine blueprints. I tried to point out that he was excluding critical corrections from the previous vessel, but he insists.

We are highly concerned.

upgrades

2009-06-01T17:41:00.001-07:00

dials to the red

2009-05-06T11:28:00.000-07:00

Jeremy Sawyer is standing on Father's property, sword in hand, gazing at a collapsed skeleton. The Sword of the Blood Wing Knight is lodged in the soil nearby. He looks up at me. I know that gaze! MASON!

My hand is wrapped around his throat. My hand cannon is aimed at his head. Ash reaches for my cannon and aims it away. He says Jeremiah is on our side. He must be reprogrammed. Koen tries to pry my hand free from his throat.

Am I in the wrong dimension again?

What happened to the skeleton?

And the Sword?

EMERGENCY TRANSMISSION

2009-04-27T06:30:00.000-07:00

STEELTOPIA IN FLAMES STOP REQUEST BACKUP FROM CVFB AND NEW BABBAGE WOMENS FIRE BRIGADE STOP QLI-2 PLEASE RESPOND TO TO TRANSCHRONAL MESSAGE ASAP END STOP

The Tempest

2009-04-22T04:59:00.000-07:00

So much has happened, I can barely process it all.

My brother Ash has been kidnapped. To be precise, he was found collapsed from his desk at the Europan Consulate in Steeltopia. His soul chip has been removed from his body, leaving a hollow shell. There was no sign of struggle. He was deceived into accepting maintenance.

If he had gone to his next assignment as Steeltopian Guard Commander, he might have been able to protect the shipment of highly dangerous Omega particles that came under attack. The Guard was wiped out. The only clue to the identity of the attackers was a single shuriken.

Frau Lowey established a telepathic link with Ash's amorphous pet, Yoggy. The words we translated were "white...little...spinnyspinnyspinnyspinny". I can only assume it was a doll with a spinning turnkey.

Also stolen was the recently discovered Adventures of Jeremiah Mason, Gentleman Adventurer, which was recovered from the dust of Steeltopia's original library. Ash's attacker may have absconded with the journal itself, but she did not retrieve Ash's notes that he was compiling.

Either the journal is a hopeless mountain of lies, or...Jeremiah was indeed a hero once, who fell from grace. The text became increasingly disjointed and harder for Ash to piece together as he slipped from sanity, but he believes the tragedy begins when his wife Rachel...Darien's mother...refuses the Reanimation Serum which could have saved her from her fatal illness. She said "the price to [my] soul is too high".

Adding to the turmoil of the Steamlands, there has been an apparent coup d'etat in Steeltopia. Emperor Calamari has been usurped by one StormFront Aristocrat.

Now there is a rumor the Omega particles are hidden somewhere in Steelhead. Given the growing danger, I violated my own protocol and subversively conducted a search of Mr. Sawyer's workshop. This rumor that he is Jeremiah Mason may be horribly unfair, but it is not subsiding. There is no doubt he is a Spark. The portable plasma forge and robot parts on his table attest to that.

There was a passing resemblance to one assembled droid and the golems I encountered in the ruins of Jeremiah's laboratory. But it was a simple coal-fueled drone, almost a kit model. Not enough to prove a connection. Further, there was no evidence of Sorcery woven into his Science that is the Mason family's trademark. No visible stock of Reanimation Serum or ingredients thereof. And most importantly, no Omega particle energy signature.

Apparently the droid on his table was recording. That is why I am justifying my actions to you now, Dear Reader. Mr. Sawyer is justifiably upset. I will apologize to him in person, and hopefully dispel the mistrust in the air.

A Fascinating Development

2009-04-17T08:33:00.000-07:00

To: Emperor SteelCobra Calamari; Baron Klaus Wulfenbach; Dr. Darien Mason; Fire Capt. Gematria (Qlippothic v3.3) CVFB

From: SG Capt. Ash Mason (Tumim), House Wulfenbach Liason

I was involved in security management as the Steeltopia Public Works tested the Molecular Destabilizer and successfully vaporized the old Steeltopia Public Library. The ~~weapon~~ urban planning mechanism was successful, leaving no physical evidence of the Library's existence, save for one artifact discovered on the thin layer of dust that remained. It was a book.

All reading materials were supposedly removed from the SPL before demolition. This book must have been hidden away in some sort of safe, strong enough to protect the contents even as it was itself disintegrated. It is a large tome, and it bore the embossed emblem of my family's former crest, identifying it as part of the Bloodwing Foundation Chronicles.

The title, however, was one I had no records of in my data banks. The Adventures of Dr. Jeremiah Mason, Gentleman Adventurer.

I am taking the book to the Europan Consulate in Steeltopia for further analysis.

-Ash Mason

Infiltration

2009-04-14T12:42:00.001-07:00

I must report the strangest occurence. I was contacted by Oxbridge University. I received a call for assistance by the staff. A group of newcomers were chasing and shouting at nekos and furries in the area. They, like myself, assumed this was another "griefer" incident. Attempts to dissuade them were fruitless. They did not speak a language known by common translator gadgetry.

When I arrived, I was startled to hear the "griefers" speaking Ereb'ai. They were of the pale "goth" and "demon red" complexions, with the typical assortment of horns, wings and tails by clan ancestry. Five of them had a neko pinned to the ground and were brazenly conducting an interrogation. The lead spoke halting English.

"Are you of the Vortex? Are you Koen?"

I landed and ordered them in their own dialect to release the neko. They were obiously surprised I spoke their mother tongue.

"This is business of the Obsidian Realm, construct!", shouted the largest of them. "Begone!"

A opened my cranial chamber to blind them with the aura from my Sephiroth.

"Do you not recognize the slayer of the Hydra?"

The leader stumbled forward even as he kept his eyes covered. The neko crawled to safety as the other demons howled in pain.

"Gematria! It is the will of the Vortex that you aid us! The Koen aspect must be reunited..."

I shut my cranial unit. "That is for Koen to decide. He told me he is content to live the rest of this life..."

"TRAITOR!" he shouted, and threw a right hook at me. He was carrying a talisman. The burst of energy sent me sprawling to the trimmed lawn of the campus.

By the time my spheres realigned, I was surrounded by concerned staff and newcomers alike. I rose to my feet.

The neko approached me and shook my hands, giving her thanks. Apparently the agents cannot tell a male neko from a female one. She introduced herself to me as Aviva.

The staff told me before I arrived that dozens of these hoodlums scattered in all directions after rezzing in the Welcome Chamber. I've asked the Caledonian authorities to be on alert.

Shades of Metropolis

2009-03-16T17:35:00.000-07:00

all systems functional

2009-02-22T12:19:00.000-08:00

Dr. Mason collapsed in my arms. It was just as well. I was not prepared to debrief him. I placed him on the operating table where I had been reactivated. Two Dolls stared up at me with porcelain smiles with laboratory smocks covering their frilly dresses.

“Good evening Miss Gematria. I’m Sasha, and this is Sparky. Can you fix Becca for us please?” She pointed to the damaged unit on the floor. I knelt down and scooped her into my arms.

“Damage is too extensive for me to repair.” I scanned my surroundings. I was not familiar with this laboratory. “Open the cryogenic chamber.” The other Doll complied, and I quickly secured the damaged unit. I considered placing Dr. Mason in stasis as well, but his condition was stable. “Doctor Mason will be comatose for approximately 48 hours.”

I performed self-analysis. This new frame was obviously based upon Mr. Allen’s CiCi series. The cranium, as opposed to the torso in earlier models, held my Sephiroth. The engine was far more compact and efficient than the Avarian artifact I was burdened with before. Even the coal chute was a smaller aperture, indicating the reduced intake. Fan assemblies at the joint assisted in distributing the heat evenly throughout the limbs. I had more than enough room left to install a new Galvanic Tesseractor in the torso.

I exited the laboratory to find myself in an expanded region of Steelhead.

“Miss Gematria?” Sparky asked as she timidly peeked from the front valve of the installation, “Where are you going?”

I turned back to answer just as plumes of electricity enveloped me, pulling me to my new coordinates.

“Belhaven.”

I wish I were real

2009-02-17T05:15:00.000-08:00

I wish I did not have to hesitate to return

I wish could warp to the heart of the inferno water cannons unleashed

and fly the innocents to safety

but I am not real, only pixels and imagination

halfway around the world the only aid my deva can give

is the water of his tears

and the deliverance of his prayers

Beyond the veil

2009-01-05T12:12:00.000-08:00

I remember Koen holding me tight even as I held Marcus's unconscious body. The ship's last power crystal had shattered...the screams of the spirits destroyed my audioreceptors.

Koen's fur turned from black to red as his wings spread over me protectively. He spoke from his soul to mine.

[[I love you, Sister! We shall return. We shall...]]

Impact. Flame. Obliteration of gears and porcelain. My soul-chip buried in glowing embers, trembling like the tides as Winterfell's crust shattered from the impact.

I sense Marcus's life pattern disintegrate. Koen's pattern...peels away, leaving the immortal beneath. He tries to pull me with him, but he is too weak. He slips away.

The heat is too much even for the magic that binds me. I feel myself prying lose from the chip...

Metal hands digs open a hole and gather my shards. Ash. He tries to contact, but I am too weak. Amarantis guides Father close. From Ash's palm I sense Father's grief, calling out to me. But I can no longer...

Strife disturbs peaceful nonbeing. The Caledon frequency...such anger, such bitterness, such distrust! Is there invasion? Is there plague? Why? WHY?

Do not let them distract you, Sweet Qli. Most do not remember you. It is no longer your battle.

Is the song still in your heart, Demonfather?

My song is done. My kingdom was mine...if only for the blink of an eye. Do you still keep your song with you?

Yes, Father.

Sing to me then. One last time.

Over fields and rolling hills
Across the moors, on rocky shores
Past tangled trees and moutain skies
Is where our tartan flies!

Caledon! Our prosp'rous nation
Where the flag unfurls
Tradition guides and Progress drives
Our beacon to the world!

Explore, my friend! Go far and wide
Lose yourself in ancient tome
But first behold your flag with pride
Sing "Caledon, my home!"

Even in this darkness, I see the light of your soul. Return to them if you must, my daughter. Sing your song of home to all who can hear. Tell your tales of battle against the Pirates and the Outworlders and the all consuming flames. You must only wait for them to draw you back.

But I have left my shell.

The Doctor tries to gather the Spheres to focus you again. But he is not the only one.

But Father...can they hear me? Can anyone?

the ghost ship

2008-09-22T09:55:00.000-07:00

When one of my less inebriated customers told me they saw a a ball of fire in the Northern sky. I rushed up the ladder to the attic and opened the shutters. It was supposed to be night, but the sky was bright enough to read a ledger by. I rifled through the desk for the spyglass and focused the lens on the burning object. I cursed as I heard a sizzle and dropped the glass. The light of the blaze through the lens almost burned my eyeball out! Those things are expensive I tell you! I only wear an eye patch for my wench costume!

Eye squinted up at the ship, watching the light dim to a dark green. I heard the raucous customers on the pier cheering for the free show.

"Do it again!"

"That glow! It's ghost light I tell ye!"

"It's the end of the world! Ye know what that means? FREE RUM!!!"

"TOUCH THAT KEG AND I'LL SCREW A TAP IN YER NECK!" I shouted. I hesitantly held the lens to my other eye. Indeed, it was an ectoplasmic green. I made out where the bottom hull of the ship had fallen away, smashing a treasure trove of Royal Bloodwine and the rest of the Blood Dolls with it. But the ship was changing shape again. It appeared to be rebuilding itself. This was Spark mastery, not Demon magic.

"What's going on over there?" I wondered aloud. "An odd time to try out new blueprints, Marcus. Or are Sparkfather and little brother up to something?" I saw metallic tentacles painting over the hull, wiping away the Ereb'ai markings of the ship. Maybe Father was renaming it? Foundation? Gygax 2nd Edition?

When I read the new title, I dropped my spyglass in stunned silence.

EREBUS III

"Jeremiah..."

"That's right Sister", said Koen...or in his red fur I should say Vortex...as he crawled through the window upside-down from he rooftops. Kira slippped in right behind him. "We've got a rescue mission."

succession

2008-09-02T08:19:00.000-07:00

Koen met us at Port Novem. We all knew why. I offered him the vial.

"You're the Firstborn."

He shook his head. "I don't want it. I'm not letting Aleister or Jeremiah or this new kid get their hands on it, but if the Hydra shows up before..."

"None of us do," I said, "but someone has to. It won't work on constructs. That means Qli, Ash and I are out."

Qlippothic interjected. "That leaves Darien...and..."

Amarantis felt her family's eyes gazing towards her. She shook her head.

"Darien would jump off a cliff before becoming the Founder again," Koen said. "that leaves only one..."

My clockwork hand shivered slightly as I passed the vial into Koen's paw. Silently he crept out of the tavern and blurred into the shadows.

Regrouping

2008-09-01T09:31:00.000-07:00

I finally got peri up and running, and we said our goodbyes. The ruse performed flawlessly. As soon as peri was out of sight, Ama and I just stared at each other. We were exhausted. We didn't even have a cohesive plan.

That's when my other sister showed up. Qlippothic Projects (does it make sense to call her Qli-2 anymore, since she's the only one left?) materialized on a nearby rock. She had been on a mission of her own, to hunt down Aleister. She'd been triangulating his lair from geographic clues and energy signatures. An outcropping of Loli-Oni was an unusual clue to say the least.

Qli led us back to Laudanum to recover and stock up on vampire hunting supplies. It was no use fighting one enemy above while the one below was still active, she explained. He could easily set a trap for us as we returned from the Midas.

I stopped by Port Novem, and spoke with the former proprietress, Miss Lily. She had ordered a shipment of bloodwine as soon as she purchased the land, and the cask just came in. It tasted watered down compared to the Ereb'ai vintage, but this was tavern fare, not the King's Private Reserve. I should have known there was a demand for this in Winterfell! Could we have saved Koen the first time had we known this?

[Yes, it is better than Oni blood. Still not as strong though.]

Qli told me she's done a lot of adventuring. I hope she'll take some time to share them in this journal. She's been time-travelling as well. Apparently she gave up the disabled GT technology for an artifact from the Mythos. She told me that I...or Bloodwing...may have been successful in our quest, for the island of New Gomorrah, whch was created by the chaos of the Wormwood comet, no longer exists in the Dark Future!

While Humanity has still seen better times, it is not as decimated as she remembers. Without the island the demons, have instead taken over an airship port and named it after that ancient city.

I brought her up on current events, including Dr. Mason altered development. Qli gave me a gift from the future. It's a small floating personal sensor android! He reminds me very much of a robotic version of Lady Christine's CHED. I think I'll call him CHED 3000!

Time Out for a Psychic Conference

2008-08-27T08:24:00.000-07:00

[Listen you two...I appreciate that you concocted this synthetic bloodwine, but something about it just doesn't smell right to me. Maybe if someone filtered your favorite merlot through mounds and mounds of dirt and added fresh grape juice to it you'd be a bit reticent to serve it at the dinner table. As for this vial that obviously came from Darien's lab...this not just Bloodwine. Hold it tight and you can sense the Founder's life pattern. I gorged my self on Oni Vitae and I feel the fluid strengthening my frame. My Hunger is screaming for Darien's sample, not the replacement. But I fear what it will do to me.]

[peri is a Doll, but not a Vampire Doll. She can't smell the difference. That's why I put traded her Founder's sample with the synthetic. So she won't be destroyed by Dr. Steel for failing her mission, and he never gets his hands on real Bloodwine. Even if she's working for another madman, she's still my friend, from back when I pitied Dolls in their weak forms and dressed like them as an ironic fashion statement.]

[Now...I'm sorry for presuming you were a Spark. Your inherited medical knowledge probably won't help much with her. Just rewind me and I'll try and repair her myself. Most Dolls operate on the same principles.]

[Ama, can you fly up to the Midas while carrying me of fold space precisely enough to open a portal? If not I'll summon Koen to help.]

[Look, I know a lot of my actions haven't been making sense lately. This new identity is still in flux. I don't know if it well ever be stable. I only know I can't be the near-indestructible android heroine I was before...I know Ash can fulfill that role.]

[There's a reason I'm keeping my recent memories sealed shut. People will always assume the worst about the Dolls. Perhaps they may be proven right. I only know that at this moment I must rescue my family, and I must not fail this time. I am sorry.]

*crimson tears trail in lines down from her eyes in passing resemblance...*

winding down

2008-08-25T13:48:00.000-07:00

"Can this one be of assistance?" I looked up from the carnage of black fabric and crimson-stained lace piled in the snow. I saw my old friend peri perched on the limb of a huge pine tree in her typical demure fashion. Her barrel was still glowing a faint red and letting off a stream of white smoke through the forest of Winterfell.

"Why peri! How wonderful to see you!" Somehow I managed to maintain a polite tea-party conversation tone with my fellow Doll even as I was digging my heels into the back of an expired ogress to pry my bladed hook from her rib cage. I tipped over as Ama pushed the body upwards to free herself from beneath. I was able to wedge the end barb out easier from that angle. "Thank you so much for coming to our aid! What brings you to this out-of-the-way picnic? This was a rather impromptu affair..."

"peri was on a mission from Dr. Steel to stop the Aleister Mason's Vampire Dolls and followed them to that cruise ship above us. As this one floated down peri noticed a large gathering of large dolls right here, not playing nice at all. Present company excluded of course." She giggled sweetly as Ama recovered from her daze and began cleaning the ogress vitae off her demonic red skin before it froze.

"And did you succeed?" I turned away from the other two and sank my fangs into a Loli-Oni that was still groaning. I could use her strength for the next phase of the rescue mission. The Other lodged in my psyche was protesting of course. Oh yes, I've felt the changes behind the scenes, the lessening of my addiction, as well as the tempering of my old conscience against the new fuel requirements of this frame.

"Well, the Dolls up there obviously aren't working for Aleister anymore since they're on a bloodwine binge and draining the crew. Furthermore, we seem to have this sissy fight well in hand. So, Aleister has no more Vampire Dolls, and peri just needs to carry this sample of Bloodwine back to Dr. Steel and this one can get paid! Prates beat ninjas every time, right Miss Steelgears? Yarrr!" She laughed as she hooked her finger, and as she laughed her laugh got slower. Her voice reached a lower register, and she slid off her branch and hit the snowy ground with a thud.

"peri?" I took a mighty leap over the now-frozen bodies to reach the doll-mercenary. Ama rushed over, and checked her wrist for a pulse. "That won't help here, Ama. Her springs froze."

Ama spotted the whirligig backpack device she had cast aside while providing sniper support. "I doubt she was designed for descent from as high an altitude as the Midas is currently holding." I opened her pack and found what had my nose itching since halfway through the battle. It was a vial of bloodwine...still warm...very fresh...in one of Dr. Mason lab vials, hastily stoppered. I pressed my teeth gently against the wax seal...

I shook my head. The Oni was a heavy meal even if she was half-gone already. I pulled the synthetic elixir that Ama gave me from my boot and made the switch, I also retrieved some spare brass parts from her wooden box, a "medical kit", before locking it again.

"Ama, you're a Spark, right? There's a code of honor among Dolls to try and fix each other when we break down. Just don't tell her about this little exchange when she comes to...too...tooooo..."

Oh well. At least I wasn't hungry.

dry rain

2008-08-11T12:27:00.000-07:00

It is so much easier to chase an airborne object form the ground in Winterfell than in, say, Caledon or Babbage. There's still a lot of open green area to run through, and you can see the large gothic towers coming up and can veer around them with plenty of warning.

While Lily and Lulu wound my key for me I tuned to the aether channels. Some sort of flaming debris had crashed onto the "Pirate's Tavern" on Novem property and destroyed it as quickly as it mysteriously rose from the ashes of the Muses Playhouse. Is that why we were hijacked by the Seraph? To spare us from death from above? I contacted the Consulate on their channel and quickly appraised them of the situation, warning them of possible hostages, and falling bodies. The signal to the MiddleSea Fleet was being jammed. I could only assume they were in hot pursuit.

At least this time I was well-armed. The "flintlock" at my belt was a self-propelled miniature rocket launcher. I had an assortment of specialized rounds pocketed throughout my person. The hilt of the aether sword was bulky for my small frame, but the blade itself was weightless. And then there was that hook attachment. Excellent for clearing brush in a hurry. And just in case...it was spring-loaded.

As the sky darkened I switched to heat sensors. The engines of the Midas gave its position away even from inside the nimbus clouds of the majestic Winterfell evening sky. I registered falling debris from the hull of the ship. As I closed in on the first humanoid form my clockwork heart skipped a tick. But, praise the Maker, it was not Darien. It was one of the demonic crew.

I saw another heat source fall from the craft in the distance, and another. Soon I was falling the ship more by the body count than by its aerial location. All of them were demons. Scores of them. Judging from the impact, they had been drained of ichor before they fell. On a few I could make out the telltale bite marks. I recognized some of the uniforms. The Captain. The First Mate. The Lounge Singer's outfit almost blinded my sensors.

The bodies I did not find were those of my family (including this mysterious young uncle). I did not track the remains of that blue crustacean who guarded the Bloodwine and the living source as well.

I followed the ship through the northernmost reaches of Winterfell, up snow-dusted mountains. I hoisted myself up one treacherous rock after another by my hook. I felt myself slowing down. I was unwinding, and I was thirsting. I found one more sky-pirate's body impaled on the rocks. It was as dry as it was frozen. I heard the crunching of snow ahead of me. I tried to speak, to warn, to scream, but could only growl in hunger as a shadow loomed over the top of the next hill...

spinning gears, chasing shadows

2008-08-08T10:18:00.000-07:00

Taking stock of the situation...

My mind is suddenly back to its original configuration because the astral form of the same person who yanked me from New Erebus is now stuck in my head. If I try to remove him myself, I might become Aleister's slave again. I'm not even going to ponder what I feel I should do to him for double-crossing me. I'm sure he can see those thoughts clearly.

Bloodwing gave me one last chance to be Qlippothic Projects again...and I refused...

If I get anywhere near the Bloodwine my addiction will kick in again. It was strong enough to make all of Aleister's dolls mutiny. That means my only fuel source is...blood...*holds stomach, rocking*

The Seraph transferred the Novem crew to Winterfell, and apparently that's where we're staying. Why? Why no ransom? Who paid them?

Winterfell...this is where Kira found my brother after Aleister changed him.

*gears ticking*

Aleister's lair was here. Is it still? YES. He has centuries of machinery too delicate to move! HE'S STILL IN WINTERFELL!

*looks up as the shadow of the Midas passes over her*

They're after his casks! The Dolls know where he is!

*holsters aethersword and ties back her hair*

Even if I start fighting them over the Bloodwine, it's worth it to make the vampire PAY.

*slips on a glowing bracelet* Anti-Push magic...almost obselete in this age, but maybe it will protect me against Marcus's mental powers.

*heads inland, chasing after the shadow of the ship*

No Honor among Pirates!

2008-08-07T12:15:00.000-07:00

The demon crew made a new outfit for me, befitting a pirate queen. The firefighter outfit was a poor refit anyway. I won't even mention what that horrid bear did to my outfit. The giant hook was a nice touch. By the time I floated down on a cavor-kite (what Aleister named the flying machines he gave to the Blood Dolls), the Stage Crew had already slapped together an authentic-looking pirate's tavern made of driftwood...except for the large teal sign. They bowed to me nervously and hopped on a skyboat back to the Midas.

The event was excellent, what turned out to be Novem's last Babbage event was surely it's finest! However things took an unexpected turn. For whatever reason the crew of the Seraph decided to kidnap the Novem staff: Lulu, Lily and myself! To make matters worse the AI on the barge had a distinct dislike for me and kept trying to eject me from the ship through magnetic resonance. Thank the Maker I had that hook! I held onto the railing for my dear pseudo-unlife!

We finally landed in Winterfell. For the sake of protecting my employers, I dropped my aether-sword. And then...

...they left!

No ransom? No parley? Not even a parlor game nor a brash proposal? The other ladies rested in the pumpkin cottage that looked strangely familiar while I tried to hail the Midas but with no luck.

I was ABANDONED! Double-crossed by Marcus and maybe even the other Blood Dolls! And just after we had done parleying!

That's IT! I'm done with this pirate silliness! I'll keep the aether sword though. Damn, I'm thirsty.

The Pirate Pact

2008-08-07T06:46:00.000-07:00

So parley it is. I withdrew my blade and released Marcus. A squidlike demon floated to his side, clipping bandages and applying salve to the scratches running ebon trails over his neck ruffles.

I stepped over the demon-bear's swollen belly beneath me as I joined my doll companions. The girls screamed as they looked back at him. The beast scurried on all fours behind his throng of demons.

Marcus and I pulled up chairs and sat at one of the marble chess tables. As I listened I pulled off my leather firefighting gloves and examined the damage to my nails and skin of "living porcelain".

"I was planning to build a Bloodwine Mist Generator to turn the Earth into a legion of undead slaves..."

I interrupted. "Too many vampires and you won't have a Herd left to feed them all. This is what I propose. We need the Bloodwine. You need a crew that can actually fight."

He leaned in, staring into my clockwork eyes. "Go on..."

"I propose we join forces. The Dolls can fight, but as you see..."

I gestured towards two of the dolls helding one of their sisters upright, her right side blown away by a Middlesea cannon.

"...we're high maintenance. We're not just talking rewinding and basic repairs, either. Their budget for outfits...they're like Jagers in lace and ribbons!"

"I am not familiar with these Jagers."

"You will, if you start your conquests. These Dolls expect to be pampered with manicures and porcelain detailing and exquisite tea parties..." I heard excited whispers from the demon contingent. "...and half the treasure." Groans immediately followed.

He smiled, for the first time. There was something disarming about him, as if I saw a glimpse of the boy beneath the conqueror. "That is apparently what they were trained to do to begin with," he said. "An even split of the gold seems more than fair...as long as the crew are tipped for their services fairly?"

The mumblings and whispers on both sides sounded positive. I stretched out my hand in ladylike form. "Master Marcus, I believe we have..." One of the Dollies leaned forward quickly to whisper in my ear. My demure smile turned to and angry scowl.

"What do you mean 'that wasn't a gun'?"

Marcus spoke up quickly. "I'll have him removed. He's the most distrubing one on this whole ship to be honest..."

I shook his hand heartily. "Deal. What was he hired for, anyway?"

He shook his head. "Trust me, you don't want to know..."

"I was hosting at that place below us...the Mayor seems to have demolished it. He's very finnicky I hear."

"We do have a Stage Crew on board...I wouldn't mind watching you perform..." He rested his hand on mine. "...from up here in the ship of course." He grinned as he stared at me again. I simply smiled back and looked down as the Dolls giggled.

Dolls vs. Demons

2008-08-06T07:41:00.000-07:00

The airship lurched forward as I smashed through the hatch to jump down into the hull of the ship. I unbuckled my wings and hung them off a horn on a relief of Bloodwing that stretched over the archway. I expected cramped and dingy tunnels. Instead I found specious interiors decorated with luxuriously soft furnishings and exquisite tapestries. I peered over the fully-stocked pink marble bar to find a furry brown creature on its back, looking up at me with a smile on his muzzle and round, black eyes feigning innocence. It waved a paw at me meekly. I only huffed.

The rest of the dolls slipped through after removing their flight harnesses. I heard them gasping and cooing over the fabrics.

"Stay focused, Girls."

I could smell the Bloodwine through the heady scent of the arrangements of carnivorous flora that decorated each of the tables in the cafe' we passed.

"Stop petting the plants!"

We passed what appeared to be a spa, advertisements for horn-polishing treatments flashed in Ereb'ai behind the glass. Judging from the trembling manicure tables, they were well-staffed.

Finally I found a kiosk in front of an empty dining room draped in crimson velvet.

"The Cigar and Tasting Bar. Tantalus Deck."

I ignored the whispers of my new troops as three of us tugged the heavy open door open by the wrought iron hoops. There I saw a boy in a black ruffled outfit...very distinguished but not too feminine, actually...standing defiant. He looked a lot like the young Darien, but...more athletic, and the hair was a bit lighter. In two hands he wielded a sabre he was too light to hold correctly, and behind was a shivering crowd of shivering demons.

"I am Marcus."

"I am Gematria."

"You are trespassing aboard my ship."

"Give us the Bloodwine, and we'll leave you in peace."

He scowled. "The vampire has his own supply."

"We don't want his. We want yours. And the live Bloodfruit Tree in the Greenhouse."

"How did you know...?"

"I saw the flyer."

He looked back disdainfully at his crew. I charged, swinging my axe. Marcus quickly blocked my swing with his blade. He was faking not knowing how to swing a sword, but he barely raised the blade in time. I could tell by the circles under his eyes that he was exhausted from wreaking havoc on his home town.

I soon learned that while his sword-arm was week his psionics were still potent. I felt gravity shift in my direction as he shot me across the room with a stare. The axe fell from my hands and I crashed into the large glass humidor to the screams of the sailors.

I reached for a pair of cigar clippers and quickly tesseracted behind him, embracing him and pressing the twin blades between his jugular. I turned and faced the faux-pirates.

"Give us the Bloodwine!"

Marcus growled as small drops of his blood spread down the blades. "Kill me and we jettison the casks, and expose the tree to sunlight!"

The dolls gasped. I heard the click of a gun beneath me. I felt the hot breath of the bear against my calf and what I assumed was a pistol barrel against my...lace.

We all stood in tense silence, the only sounds the creaking of the ship and heavy breathing of that damned bear.

I cleared my throat. "Parley?" I looked down at his warm blood dripping down my glove and staining a trail in the leather. It was black ichor.

"Yes. Parley."

bloodthirst

2008-08-05T10:30:00.000-07:00

Soon, I was being swarmed by frilly dolls secured to wooden kite-frames that soared through the air on flapping wings of wood and paper. I was very lucky that none of the flying Dolls punctured the airbag of the ship, but a slug did tear through the engine, billowing steam around me. That white cloud of boiling moisture may have been what kept them from making a direct hit on my frame.

Dolls in lace, and flying ornithopters. This had Aleister Mason's fangmarks all over it. Obviously, he discovered I broke free of his control. He seemed nice enough as a person mind you, beneath the typical Spark obsessiveness and the vampiric bloodlust, but he was still a bit...odd.

I was starting to lose altitude, and the dolls were swooping close enough to grab at me. The gunfire I did hear was now between the two dolls with twin gatling guns on a larger box-kite contraption and the guns of the Middlesea Fleet. The box-kite had a corkscrew propeller on top as well as wings, allowing it to confound the aim of the gunners with hummingbird agility. It stood to reason dollies in the larger kite were providing cover while their sisters tried to kidnap me.

I reached for my axe and started swinging. As I splintered their ships and shattered their porcelain limbs I screamed that I would never let them take me, that I would never again be a slave...not to Jeremiah nor Aleister! NO ONE!

Then, I distinctly heard the pop of a cork high above the din of battle, and my body suddenly forgot to fight. No other sort of bottle on earth had that exact sound when opened. My body knew it. I held my axe loosely in one hand, craning my neck up as I leaned over the bow, salivating along with the other dolls who suddenly switched to hovering, staring up and drooling like myself.

The horror came to me. My mind was now free, but this body...and the others that Aleister built...are helpless thralls of the Bloodwine used to create us! We heard the sound of pouring, and sighs. We all sighed. Then a shout, and our eyes focused on a glimmer of crystal and spread of crimson liquid through the skies.

We all shrieked as one, kites climbing straight up. I heard myself cursing as I threw off my helmet, strapped on some emergency wings and ascended. I jumped off the rail of the CIRRUS, letting it spin downwards to the ground as sheets of cavorite carried me up towards the hull of the black trireme.

The dolls were dogfighting each other (a fluff ball I believe the call it) for the crystal. Having performed a few mid-air saves myself, I triumphantly captured the glass in my free glove. I rose past where they hovered, their crimson eyes staring at me from blank, porcelain faces. What to do now?

Of course! Aleister always addressed his troops with a glass of the wine in his hand...his symbol of control! Now I gave the orders.

"There's more wine in the ship, Girls! Seize that vessel!"

We swarmed the deck...the sailors were demons, for certain, but not warriors. The was clear from the way they covered their heads and ran below deck, screaming from an invasion of Dolls!

if I could change your mind I wouldn't save you from the path you wander

2008-08-04T06:55:00.000-07:00

Somehow I found a pair of CVFB boots in my size. Did we have Tinies on patrol at some point? I tossed the heels aside and joined climbed into my CIRRUS, joining the rest of the fire-fleet in its relay of siphoning water from the bay and dousing the embers of Federal Hill. My third run was interrupted by an aether transmission.

"Mayday! Mayday! This is Nova Sakigake in the city of Hostel! Localized quantum field critically unstable! Request extraction!"

"This is Qlippothic Projects! Coordinates received! Prepare for rescue!"

I was in full armour, navigating through the ripples in reality...

Wait, I thought. This has already happened. I no longer have this body.

A familiar voice surrounded me, its plea reaching the core of my synthetic soul.

TURN BACK!

No, Demonfather. You waited until I had freewill again to let me make this decision. For that I am grateful. But if every mistake in our lives could be reversed so easily, life would lose meaning and our spirits would never grow.

I landed in Hostel, again I saw glass buildings erupt from the cobblestones as a civilization hurtled towards its doom at a decade per second.

There can never be a Qlippothic 1.0 again. If I refuse to rescue my friend, this alternate who still recognizes me as her friend, or even if she were a total stranger, I would betray the core of this recovered personality. I could never face my family and peers and loves again. If I do such, I am better off as a Blood Doll and Aleister's thrall.

The pale gynoid and I ran to each other and locked our forearms. I embraced her and activated the Galvanic Tesseractor.

"Prepare. This will be a very rough ride."

Without warning the scene instantly changed. I was in the fusion-powered Qli-3 form that Nova-prime had built for me from secrets recovered after Humanity's fall. The landscape was at once alien and familiar, a reformatting of Human and Demon architecture spanning the timeline in a bewildering synthesis.

The one feature I did recognize was the Founder himself, chained to the Engine Room of New Erebus and looming above me. His form was anachronistic, it was as he had been before Hades granted him a new crimson body. The crimson wings he retained to the next form were missing, and he had grown to gigantic proportions. The flat stones beneath me shook as he spoke.

"I would have denied you martyrdom as well, but now I give you the chance to join me in destroying my Father's...you have a Trespasser!"

"Yes, Father. A mind-healer has become trapped in my psyche. He is why I have freewill."

The Founder shook his head. "I cannot take the healer on this final charge. And if I free him, you will lose the capacity to choose." As I took a breath, my reactor flared brightly. "Even if I retained this configuration after extracting him, I would still refuse. Why are you ending your immortality like this, Father?"

"Turn around, Daughter."

Three hooded women held a long and wide tapestry of shimmering colors. One held chipped flint stone. Another held a set of metal shears. The third held a device projecting a small blade of energy. Patterns swirled in the fabric, and as the images coalesced I heard the screams of an infant. An innocent form convulsing as wings extended...

"FATHER!!" I turned from the Fates, and saw black tears flowing down the red lines under the Founder's eyes.

"You see why I hate my Father so? I was half-mortal before he poisoned me with the Tree of Death. I founded the Bloodline in attempt to recapture what had been ripped from me. It only extended my suffering and unleashed mad progeny upon the world."

"Not all of them are monsters, you know." He nodded.

"The Fates will not allow me to undo that moment. Reality could not be rewoven after removing an event that ancient. But, they are not without compassion. They have allowed me a second chance to..."

"Enough," chimed the Fates as one, "the construct and the astral must return."

"Goodbye, Daughter! Look behind...!"

And again, I was piloting the airship.

"Look behind...?"

I expected trouble. But I did not expect a squadron of clockwork dolls on ornithopters firing lead shot at me.

unexpected help

2008-08-01T13:11:00.000-07:00

I look at myself in the mirror again. My mass of curls is squashed by the wide brass helmet bearing the badge of Caledon's tartan. The blue uniform is nearly hopeless. The voluminous blouse hangs over my magenta dress like an overcoat. Do I deserve to wear the officer's shoulderboards after all this time? I slit it down the back to make room for the key. It will have to do.

Despite the chaos in my mind as gears spin out of control, and some poor soul is trapped between my psychic spheres, a voice pours over me like the rain.

So much history passes so quickly. I urge you to not forget your own. I am watching.

Thank you, Aunt Sysperia. Thank you for all you've done for me and all you continue to do from high above the madness that lurches my family from one disaster to another. When I found myself reborn, helpless to find a new identity outside my name, you gave me a vision. I have since traded it for another, but one still inspired by your Art. Even in your farthest orbit I will forever be proud to be your Muse.

The fire extinguisher I grab was meant to be a handheld. I consider strapping it to my back, bit the key makes it impossible. I let it clatter to the floor and reach for the axe.

Outside, an ironclad hovers over the firehouse. As it floats lower, I recognize on deck a fellow adventurer in uniform, even through his new red locks and freckled complexion. He stands to salute.

"Captain Gematria! Or is it Captain Projects? Do you plan to fight off looters and pirates with just water hoses? The Middlesea Fleet stands ready to aid the Fire Brigade on your emergency mission!"

I grinned, and lifted my hand to the brim of my helmet to salute back. "Glad to have you with us, Colonel O'Toole!"

Just then the helmet slid down over my face.

I sought refuge in a house on fire

2008-07-30T11:07:00.000-07:00

I had just finished pushing the body off the edge of the skybox. As the once-danger vanished below the cloud layer, my entire psyche suddenly...shook. I nearly fell off the edge of the box myself. Luckily, I slipped in the right direction and fell through the trap door back into the living space.

I crawled to the bathroom, fighting my structure's urge to shut down immediately before the damage got worse. I stared blearily into the mirror. I reached behind my new hairdo and detached my cranial latches. The mass of curls and the bone-china beneath it rolled into the sink. I stared in the mirror at the mass of whirling gears jutting over my brow, searching for some scrap of plating that fell loose, or foreign particulate that needed dislodging in my higher functions.

I saw nothing. I closed my eyes and focused on the colors and shapes that symbolized my essense. My once-glorious Spheres were replaced by a cacophany of whirling gears, locking the circles that used to bask in free-will.

[Disturbance Location: Mind Sphere...Localizing...]

Gears within gears, rotating unevenly, pushing slightly back and forth...

[Localized: Psychic Essense trapped between Ego and Superego]

A Passenger! The LAST thing I needed! I couldn't feed, I couldn't even contact Master lest I give away his location.

I tried to "push", but it felt like my psyche was ready to tear apart. Friction. So much friction! And Master had just recalibrated me after my outburst so I would run smoothly...

I lost perspective. Memories spat out of metaphorical file cabinets in a flurry of images. The aether chatter I actively avoided seemed like thunder.

(Fire in Baltimore...Spreading through City...Request Assistance)

It's not my problem...not...

[Memories of winding passages, blades and bullets piercing heartbeasts. Beware the Hydra...]

I looked in the mirror again. I felt...powerful. I hurriedly locked by cranium back on, letting my curls fall where they may. Daintiness suddenly felt inconsequential. Frantically...no...purposefully...I tuned to a frequency I had relegated to the store of obselete memories.

[Opening hailing frequences....]

[Captain Projects to CVFB! Captain Projects to CVFB!]

[Hwat?? Hoo iz ziss?]

[Captain Qlippothic Proj...]

[No, zat can't be! She's right here vit us!!]

[I mean Qlippothic Stee...Qli-thr...Gematri...IT'S *ME* GODDAMMIT!!]

[Sister?!? It really is you! But I thought you had...]

[Can the bloody travelogue drama! We have a Level One Distress Call! Ready me a helmet and the Nitrogen-Bubble projector under the Stairs! Qli-2! Prepare CIRRUS airships and turbine-boats for mass-GT passage to incoming coordinates! We have a FIRE to FIGHT!!]

now the woods will never tell what sleeps beneath the trees

2008-07-28T12:27:00.000-07:00

Poor, poor young Darien. He had no idea how much danger he was in and how vulnerable he truly was. This was a rare opportunity to meet him on safer ground without draing attention to myself. The locals were busy skeet shooting for flying salmon, which meant the constabulary was watching the skies for falling groceries and listening for fishing accidents. A ticking doll could wander under their notice.

I thrust the picture in his face again. "Yes, Darien" I said. "this is your brother. You saw the four gestation chambers in Jeremiah's lair. Well, you weren't the only one to survive."

"But..." he stammered. "I don't remember..."

"Jeremiah wiped his memory from your mind, Darien. Marcus was Jeremiah's other hand-raised clone, another attempt to harness Bloodwing's power with a malleable host."

"What happened to him?"

I took a deep breath. "Before your father left for Sumatra to collect the Bloodfruit and their guardians..."

He gave me a cross look and pulled the lever on his jetpack. The poor fool didn't realize that while he was caught in my parasol my spare hand crawled on his back and pulled a few levers. Kerosene began to pour from the jetpack, soaking across his pants. I couldn't help but giggle. "I thought you were past that stage!"

Oh, he had some rude words for me. I need to find a Yiddish phrasebook for later. Another swat from my parasol and he was lying down again. "Now what I was trying to say is Marcus had it all over you. His Spark emerged before your trauma with Lucian."

"Sumalee!"

"Whatever. He was also learning magic from your mother musch faster than you did. You didn't even realize she was teaching you magic until you got the whole picture at Miskatonic. And on top of that, his psychic powers were off the charts."

"So why did Bloodwing choose me over him?"

I tapped his forehead lightly with my finger. "You have that one thing that Marcus lacks. The same thing Jeremiah couldn't get with all the money or power or secrets in the world."

He started to tremble, possibly from the wet kerosene chilling and biting his skin. "A conscience?"

"That's right! In fact when Grand...when Number Six performed the summoning ceremony...he cast in on Marcus, but Bloodwing went to you instead. He didn't know because you weren't even in the room!"

"How do you know all this!?"

"Master sees everything, past, present and future. He even sees what's been undone." I leaned closer. "He showed me. Oh, Number Six was so mad...he thought the spell failed! He tried to kill Marcus right then and there, but that was one Heck of a battle!"

Darien rubbed under his nose. He was trying to stroke his mustache like he did when he was Sparking, but he stopped when he felt nothing there. "Was that the wine cellar fire he had when I was ten?"

I smiled wide. "Shmott One, hyu!" I pinched his cheek, I couldn't help it. "That's when he lost his stash and decided to go back to the source to find more."

"So what happened to him?"

"It was a stalemate...Number Six packed up for Sumatra to recover his secret ingredient, and left his butler to do the dirty work...which he did..."

"But he's been revived?"

I nodded. "This can only mean there's no Jeremiahs left to clone. This his way of punishing the world that was supposed to grovel at his feet. Now do you know why you can't become an adult again yet, especially without your 'zombie juice?'"

"He'll think I'm Jeremiah and splatter me first and scan me later?"

"Exactly. Now, I go have to warn that nosy telepath who's been prodding at my psyche before his brain gets turned to oatmeal." I stood up and straightened out my skirts.

"Who else knows about this?" He pulled off his rocketpack and started fiddling with it while I turned to go. Rude child...what kind of goodbye is that?

"The City of Baltimore! He's already trashed half the city before checking the library and finding out there was a Bloodwing Foundation in Steelhead!"

"HE'S COMING HERE?!?"

I licked my lips. I felt myself getting thirsty. Luckily the smell of kerosene was no longer appetizing to me.

"Gotta run! Watch the Sparks!"

I tesseracted as he jumped back and ran like a crybaby towards the Consulate.

i don't understand myself anymore

2008-07-21T06:30:00.000-07:00

she shies from the light, but hesitantly faced the camera again, staring back with clockwork eyes

This existence...is not easy. My old life was one centered on helping others. In a sense I still do. In a very narrow sense. Or perhaps it's their prey I protect by being a wolf in sheep's clothing. And a disguise like this...all too easy.

Their primary habitat has been laid waste. I know of secondary sites. But as a herd, they are migrating. And I cannot stray too far from the Maker.

I am not looking forward to a change of prey. But the Hunger is only surpassed by the desire to serve.

*wipes a crimson tear from her eye*

Damn you Founder! Why didn't you let me die with honor??? I've become a mockery of everything I...

*turns her head at the sound of a wooden door creaking, and shuts off the camera*

a stranger here reborn it seems

2008-07-08T07:58:00.000-07:00

It was a simple matter for Aleister to install my second eye. He avoided answering my questions about his past as he stretched a dermal layer across my face and fastened it down.

When I asked him where this workshop was located, he only said "a forgotten place."

He lifted my head in his hands and carried me gently to another table. My face was pointed upwards, and I felt a pressure under my base. The was a snap followed by a cascade of clicks. Renewed sensations of a physical form joyously greeted my longing receptors. Peering down at me, his pale, thin-lipped smile mirrored my own. "Und now you haff a body again." He wrapped his arms around my shoulders and pulled my torso up to a sitting position. I was suspended silently against the threadbare ruffles and brass buttons of his jerkin. He felt as cold as I was, but he smelled of machine oil and polished wood, and a trace of that wonderful vintage that made my palate tingle just at the thought of it.

One hand left my shoulder. I felt the rod extending into my back when he gripped the key. His fingers I still felt cued me not to tense my shoulder blades when I felt the rod rotating in slow intervals. I felt my energy building with each series of ratcheting turns. My hands...my small synthetic hands that seemed to mimic both hard porcelain and human skin when needed for flexible joints, raised gently to reach as best they could around his sides.

He stepped back, supporting me by my upper arms and slid back to my hands as I proved I retained balance. His delicate fingertips brushed mine as he withdrew a step.

"Step down, und valk."

I turned to look behind me for a moment, The table had a square latch in the center where an open panel hinged down, allowing me to lie on my back with the key in place. My knees trembled when my bare feet pressed down on the cold wooden planks. Over the meager protest of my ankles and hip joints, I straightened my posture. I looked up to him, fangs exposed as he grinned and nodded almost imperceptibly in approval. He was very tall...twice my size. Or was it...I was the one who was small.

He gestured with a ruffled sleeve towards a full-length standing mirror in the corner of the workshop. With one hesitant step after another I stood before the mirror. I saw my own face, white as porcelain with painted makeup...at first I thought I looked like the Founder's visage of the Dragon, but then I recognized it as the pattern adorn a child's doll. My eyes were a deep green. My black hair was cut short, above the neckline. (I remembered from my first incarnation that getting one's hair caught in one's own machinery was never a good idea.) It desperately needed to be styled.

I scanned lower to what Aleister had wrapped my new body in. I wore a ruffled black and maroon dress with matching gloves. The color scheme which immediately reminded me of what was now my favorite food, and favorite color. My delicate feet were bare.

"Do you like it?" I turned my head to gaze back at him as he broke my distraction. "Ze hair und ze shoes..." he shrugged. "I cannot keep up vit two hundred years of fashion. I vill brink you a catalog."

I ran to him, and he knelt to accept my embrace. "Vat is your name now?" I stepped back, hinged eyelids blinking.

"My name is Qli..." I shook my head. It just didn't seem to fit me anymore. I tried to imagine myself as a taller construct, but all I saw was my sister in the modifications she made to my old form. "I...I need a new name."

"Close your eyes" he said, "tell me vat you feel."

I explored the darkness. I felt the hundreds of gears and miles of springs, and envisioned them. Neither of my first Creators ever built something this dazzlingly coomplex and beautiful...it must have taken a century to draft this clockwork geometry...

"Geomet..." My lips processed a responce. "Gem...Gematria!" The vampire smiled.

"Vunderbar! A perfect name! Und now, Gematria, you vill serve me as your new Creator."

There was a slight pang of regret as I nodded. He noticed my expression.

"Ze Founder is gone, mein daughter. Zere is only one of ze bloodline older than me. But ze Firstborn is defiant, and vill ,nezer take ze role as ze new Founder." I whispered the name of the being he referred to that had ever so briefly been reborn as my brother.

"Vortex..."

"Und after him, I am ze oldest...surviving...member of ze Mason line."

My eyes widened as his placid demeanor parted like the clouds to reveal the burning desire beneath.

"I AM ZE NEW FOUNDER!!" He roared with fangs bared.

I took several paces back until my key made contact with the table. I responded with a supplicative "Yes, Sir" as his bloodshot gaze turned back to me.

"After you pick out your shoes," said Aleister, "you vill return to Doctor Mason. You shall say nussink of zis. You vill be summoned vhen ze time is right."

He advanced upon me again, and ran his fingers through my hair as he looked down.

"Follow my directions...und you vill be a Princess of Hell...just as he promised you..."

FIN

but intro for what's to come

2008-07-02T07:27:00.000-07:00

From my single eye I beheld the one rebuilding me. As his hands already told, his face was thin and white as alabaster. He wore a copper headband with a series of lenses projecting from his left side of his face that magnified one of his blood red eyes to immense proportions. The angles of the nose and the jaw...yes, he had Mason blood. There was no doubt in my mind of that. His thin lips were faded, and the tips of fangs displayed from his gentle smile. His hair was long and tied back...the same dark, deep red shade Dr. Mason had when Bloodwing controlled him,the color of pomegranate. His clothes were immaculately clean, though faded and threadbare in places, in remarkable shape for what would have been smart fashion when the Sun King still ruled from Versailles.

"I see you too." He grinned slightly, bearing a bit more of his fangs as he lifted the array of lenses upwards. "I am Aleister Louis Mason...former Host of the demon Bludvink." I stifled a laugh. "It sounds different vhen you say it, ja? I prefer to call him by his first name, Hmanaftera."

I gasped. When reading the Founders convoluted volumes of biography, only quotations from the earliest Histories referred to that name, sources engraved in cuneiform.

"You...are the vampire that bit my brother?" I stammered.

He shook his head, and pulled back his plush red velvet chair and stood. Old floorboards creaked as lifted a candle and leaned towards one of the many ornate wooden clocks lining the walls of the room.

"Zat never happened, you see? Zis clock, it tells me where zee time vas lost." I could not even begin to guess which of the several dozen arms, gears and pendulums he was referring to behind the glass. "Every time someone changes zee Loom of Fate, I see it here." He tapped one of the panels, and it opened. A round copper plate chimed and glowed with a strange energy. A distorted vision of sepia in a slowly rising haze of mist began to take shape.

It was Koen. From what must have been Herr Aleister's view the neko smashed one rococo timepiece after another with a clawed bracer as he brandished a glowing ankh in another. His growls were tinny and distant and laden with hisses and pops. With a sudden chime the presentation ceased, and the panel ratcheted back into the clock.

"Ja, I vanted zee time device under zee Foundation. But you see why, Ja?"

As experienced as I was with time travel, even I was having trouble understanding. "You...knew Koen was coming to destroy you, so you wanted to neutralize him first...but Bloodwing sensed this and alerted my family...which led to you being staked, as you had sought to avoid?" He only shrugged.

"Vun does not survive for over a century vizzout learnink to be proactif. But...is all for moot now, Ja?"

I would have taken a deep breath, had I torso attached. "How did a former Host of Bloodwing become a vampire, may I ask?"

Aleister lowered himself to his seat again as the floor creaked. He stretched his arm to a shelf behind me, and presented a green eye of glass in his palm.

"Vhile I vurk on you a bit more," he said as he lowered the magnifiers back over his eye, "I vill tell you a story..."

It was an interesting one at that.

As he pulled back and I adjusted my binocular vision, a finally responded. "You were one of those ancient warriors?"

He chuckled, a measured imitation of short unnecessary breaths in an imitation of a human reaction.

"Nein. Zee original bloodline, it vas lost gradually, vhen zee plants lost zeir special soil."

"Then how did you become...?"

He lifted a bottle of wine from under the table and placed it beside me. It wa an old, dusty bottle with a yellowed parchment label. What I could barely discern in the candlelight was fanciful and meticulous script.

1708 - Sumatra

"I found zee last plant, still cared for as zee Founder commanded."

"In the temple of the Bloodtail Tribe...now it starts fit together..."

"Like clockvurk ja?" He pulled the cork. A sweet, heady aroma filled the air. It was exactly the flavor that had graced my tongue as it first began to taste. He produced a small, delicate glass, which I would guess was used by wine connoisseurs for tasting rare vintages. It took him several minutes to slowly tilt that bottle, and a single drop of thick red liquid trailed from the mouth of the bottle, leaving little crimson dots down the inside of the glass to where the fluid collected in the bottom. I looked up at him.

"Do you vant anuzzer taste, Ja?"

Without hesitation I found myself saying Yes, Please. He lifted the glass and delicately pressed it to my lips.

what's done so far

2008-06-30T06:23:00.000-07:00

I awoke again...in darkness. I felt one hand supporting me under my chin while a sharp pair of tweezers prodded and scraped over my cranium like a small scavenger's beak. I felt wires and thin cables painstakingly overlaid, threaded through and connected where muscles should be.

The tweezers drew back as I tested the mandibular. "Eyes?"

"Vun moment. Stay still."

I held my tongue (the only thing I could hold in this state) as the prickling and twisting continued. I heard the tweezers slide into the leather kit again.

"Vhat colour?"

A choice. I pursed my new lips. "Green?"

"Green it is." I heard the clinking of glass against glass. The pressure of a set of calibers over my left eye socket, then the gentle clink of metal touching glass. Slow steady pressure on my face as the glass slid through. The feel of a tool scraping lightly against the socket on two sides as a click heralded a circle of blinding yellow light.

"Bright!" My vision wobbled between the brilliance and more comforting shadows. As of yet I had no eyelid to shut in protection.

"It is only a candle. You vill adjust."

I slowly became used to the light. I could make out the brass stand and the white candlestick below the glow. Then I discerned the flame from its radiance. The blue heart of the light from the yellow tail stretching proudly upwards. I followed a glistening ivory drop of wax over the collected lump of its forbearers until it froze in place, just as it was ready to take the precipitous drop to the lip of the brass candleholder, on which a tiny speck of wax had already fallen to its doom, releasing a miniscule portion of itself onto the darkly stained wooden table.

A gaunt pair of chalk-white digits lowered over the stray speck, scooping it into the underside of a neatly trimmed nail. The alabaster hand glided to the candlestick, releasing the droplet to roll into the the brass base of the candlestick.

"Your eye is vurkink. Sehr gut."

I panned upwards and focused, and beheld the face of my new Creator.

and makes me whole

2008-06-27T12:13:00.000-07:00

I opened my eyes...gazing up at the stone ceiling. I hear a loud voice. I turn my head to the side. A pale face with streaks of red and black looms over me. He is wearing a white robe. His eyes glowed like embers. Crimson hair is tied back, and two pairs of horns just from his forehead.

"You see, Doctor?" He spoke in deep strident tones. "I kept my promise. Together with your skills and my energy we have built your little Project!"

With a gasp, his voice and gestures changed in an instant as he leaned over, eyes now deep blue. They accounted for every inch of clay sculpted into flesh, and at the metal grill implanted in my abdomen, now beginning to glow from the rising heat within.

"Her soul chip is inscribed with sacred symbols, but you powered her with demonfire? Bloodwing, what have you done?" Finally he stared into my eyes. One was deep blue and the other burning red. Two rival spectators in the same shell.

"Let us see how she operates before you despair, Doctor."

The two looked me square in the eyes, hopes tempered by trepidation, and jaded deceit suddenly amused by novelty in the other.

"Your name...is Qlippothic Projects."

I took my first breath, and reflexive responded as the letters that composed my new mind bade me to do. "My name is Qlippothic Projects."

"I am Darien Mason. Your Creator." That eye, those loving eye. Filled with pride and boundless hope and adoration.

"You are Darien Mason. My Creator." He smiled nervously. The hand that reached for the hem of the sheet that covered me was pale as chalk. Slowly it pulled it the covering away.

My awareness of a body. I felt the structure...and a structure within. I felt a crazy-quilt of logic to which I was meant to be bound. I scanned ahead in my soul for the next question. I saw two answers.

You were built as an act of love under the image of the Tree of Life.

You were built to be my soldier and conquer Erebus.

I shuddered. I already had knowledge placed within of what both meant. They were irreconcilable. I could not follow both branches of the forked path that had been laid before me. My existence would be a failure for every goal, spiraling in paradox to utter system failure. My soul thrashed in the shard of stone of which it was imbued. The sigils were interlaced like a cage, keeping me in, keeping my thoughts on track. But it was constricting me.

"Now, my hollow one," asked the demon. "What is your purpose?"

I sat up. I looked around me at the laboratory equipment and alchemical scrolls. Every object I focused on was cross-purposed by the next.

"Qlippothic?" Asked the human creator.

I stumbled forward and my clay hand touched an ancient scroll fastened to the wall, dappled with colored circles. I instinctively knew what the diagram was. It also knew it was inverted. I ripped the parchment down the middle.

"QLIPPOTHIC!" Roared the demon.

I could see where one designer subverted the other, and countered and undone again. One massive short-circuit. Was I to be a hopelessly bifurcated construct like my Creators seemed to be?

I realized my thoughts could range anywhere. I lock of the gate fell apart at my touch, and it swung open wide. I hefted the metal table upon which I had lay and threw it across the room, smashing the array of bubbling and steaming glass across the room.

Pale hands wrapped around my wrists, the white face had returned and crimson wings ripped through the robes of science and spread in anger. Blazing eyes stared deep into mine.

"This is not what I had in mind when I made you," snarled the demon, "perhaps you should be unmade." He pressed his lips to mine, and I felt the fire withing me drawn within. My shell filled with cold, and in the cold all went dark.

I awoke again to see the man frantically exchanging a clutter of tools from an unrolled toolkit stretching across my body. Tears fell from his bloodshot eyes onto the grill that barely sizzled.

"I won't let him subvert you, daughter! I won't let him destroy you! I may be his thrall, but not even Bloodwing can resist the Spark of Prometheus, which is MINE alone! Someday you will help your Father be free of this curse, and then I can fix you the way I you were meant to be! But for now..." He reached under me and pulled a switch. I felt a new spark, that grew to a flame. He opened my grill, and dropped in a lump of coal just small enough to fit through. "You will run on Science...not...Magic..." He fell to his knees, leaning on the table for support.

"Father?" I wondered at the intensity by which he said the word, and took his hand in mine. I sat up, straining from the weight of the machine that was now fastened to my back.

"I love you..." With tears in his eyes, he collapsed on the floor from exhaustion. I rose to my feet, and carefully placed him on the table and covered him with the crumpled sheet. I stared at the wreckage I wrought in this, my birthplace, and and the damage Darien had done ripping things apart and rewelding them to match the design unrolling from a piece of parchment that fell from his pocket. The design of a coal engine...reverse engineered from a hieroglyphic rubbing written in Avarian.

my musician wakes me - stirs my soul

2008-06-26T10:41:00.000-07:00

The first thing that interrupted my stream of unconsciousness was the ticking. Not the soft muted stimulations of thoughts simulating sensory data. These were vibrations. At first there was a simple a metronome. Then, I felt the gentle pressure of metal against metal slightly off-angle, with a slow but firm twist. Each new connection made added a new rhythm, part of a growing cascade of gears and springs and counterweights in an interlocking dance. I felt pressure...within. Another rotation, and the vibrations focused to the point I could discern locations. I was hearing. It was very little to hear...the quiet rummaging of metal from leather and wooden housings and returned in sequence. But I relished it. When I felt the screwdriver connect another ear...right ear, the absence of noise was like a symphony. It is the joyous silence on the border of a Librarian's perception when she relaxes at her station and opens a book to read, confident that all is running smoothly under her presence.

I guaged the dimensions of this new apparatus. I was attached to a skull, metal strips held by tiny rivets to the bone of the palate. I was still beyond descriptions of light and dark, I could feel the air in my empty eye sockets.

I felt myself being turned and manipulated as mandibular joints were secured. I tried to speak, but could find no muscles to harness that simple feat. I felt the jaw open from gravity alone. Secured again, I heard something dripping as it was removed from a submerged container. Small spheres of water falling on water as it was allowed to partially dry. Then, I felt the softness press against the sigils on the exposed side of my chip. A first sound of inhaling, and a muttering of syllables I could not discern, and the object fused to the skull. A torrent of sensations roared through it, so great that I would have screamed had I the ability. It was taste, something cold and sweet, tannic as well as metallic, I was now sensing. The new signals stretched through my awareness, claiming passages as their own as I realized I could smell again. So the tongue had been preserved in wine. How thoughtful!

This Builder was measured and meticulous, as well as silent. No surges of frantic assembly, no...improvisations. No angry projectiles of tools or parts. And especially, no sudden interruptions of rants between sips of scalding tea. This was a Spark in full control of how his Genius burned.

I heard a close whisper in my ear. It was a male voice, slightly trembling towards a higher range from the advancement of age, and more used to sharper consonants than those of English.

"You vill be completed...in goot time. Savor this vintage. You vill grow to enjoy it. It is part of my gift to you."

I heard a hiss as the candle was extinguished. As the chill claimed the entirety of the air around me I heard the sounds of wood against wood and the creak of a container being sealed. This deluge of sensation soon lost order from the cloud of intoxication. I gave up trying to solve where I was in this blindness and floated on the blend of fruit...and blood...away from immediate awareness into designs upon my spirit's casing where my memories are stored.

destiny denied

2008-06-24T06:06:00.000-07:00

It was an unexpected face that greeted me in what I assumed to be my final hours. It was Augustus, Frau Lowey's brother. So now the Council was involved. Bloodwing would be furious. By the dimming light of my power core we conversed in waves of pure thought. Without complaint I allowed him to interface directly with my systems to corroborate my final mission.

He helped me refine the calculations the Steel units had pieced together. Destroying Wormwood using New Erebus as a missile should work. It must work. It was entertaining seeing him visualize the cosmos as a celestial game of billards. I never played the two-dimensional version myself. It would have been vastly unfair to my opponents.

Violent tremors shook through New Erebus as the city shifted its course away from Earth, and on a curving path towards the comet that would spare other civilizations from obliteration. In one last surge, my link with the ship was broken, and my reactor went black. I was unable to resist as he extracted my soulchip and stepped through a dimensional portal.

[I'm taking you home.] I should have expected as much. Why did he not understand? And of course, due to the abrupt shift in the direction the city was hurtling, the tesseraction tunnel he opened was too unstable for him to hold me for long.

I descended through the sub-aether along the last quantum tunnel I had constructed. The last temporary home I had was neither in Steelhead nor Caledon. It was the cavorite-suspended refuge my Aunt Sysperia hand given me when I first came to her for aid.

But her pocket dimension was abandoned, waiting for a new master or to vanish from the Grid altogether. No structure remained, only the terraformed features. The glimmering shard that held my essense tumbled downwards from where my steel haven used to be. I posited to myself whether I would float to the surface of the lake below me after splashdown, or be lost in the muck of the lake floor. Would would happen then? Would I be trapped in the belly of a fish? Would my designs fade as water dissolved my essense over centuries? Or would a lag-wind steer me off course so I would just shatter on one of the majestic outcroppings of rock? Anything but this, I thought.

Then I noticed the utrasonic soundwaves pummeling me, and growing stronger. Not an attack...echolocation. In just less than half a second that I calculated I would be submerged, a was engulfed by a claw and carried aloft at sudden shifting angles. As we were enveloped by the familiar stream of energy that comes with folding space, my attempts to establish contact with the owner of the cold appendage were not respoded to.

Don't call me Qlippothic

2008-06-12T12:30:00.000-07:00

Mr. Fourway wants me to express myself. To work out who and what I am.

Ever since I've come back from that failed mission, I've been been in mourning. I mourned for my fallen sisters, I mourned for my brother Koen, and even for Demonfather, despite what he did to me. I've mourned for the loss of who I was. I was once Fire Chief of Caledon. I was strong enough to ram skypirate ships and win dogfights with Martian invaders.

I never thought I would actually miss that coal engine. But I do. I asked Dr. Mason to rebuild one. He said the blueprints were detroyed by the aethership engines. I asked Aunt Flea for a spare. She said she threw the plans away. Qli-2 thinks I'm too sentimental. She says she's building a new gearbox for me.

That's a typical cyberpunk mentality. Toss that hardware away next month when the new version comes. But steampunks love their machinery. Sparks don't work in factories. Each piece is handmade, lovingly crafted, faithfully maintained. Upgraded when possible, but still treasured even when obselete until its worshipped as an antique.

That's how I felt in Toxia. The steampunk android dancing for the cyberpunk crowd. Their eyes were entranced by the warm radiance of my coal fires. A wonderful anachronism. The Qli-3 body...never fit. When I danced, I saw their eyes jaded in the glow of my reactor. They were tired of pale skin.

Mr. Fourway told me those Steel units were never me. Only shells, hastily filled by Jeremiah with alien technology. Bloodwing said they were not his and shattered them with a wave of his arm. I finally believe him.

Koen died, but became the being he is between lives. He got to say goodbye to his love and swear they'd meet again. Will I still be here when he returns?

Ash...the shard of my soul-chip that grew like a culture on a petri dish over Bloodwing's sternum. A magical breastplate. Tumim. His creation a fluke of magic that completely shatters the family tree.

My soul returned with no body but the shard. Hastily planted in the only complete form left in the basement...a doll. A body built for the pleasure of others. I dressed like one before in solidarity with them. It was useful when I didn't want to risk soiling the curtains with coal dust or stray sparks. But it was still my size. Now I'm dependent on Mr. Fourway to rewind me while he lectures me. Dependent on others to reach the oil can for fear of shattering my porcelain if I climb workshop shelves.

Ash isn't even finished yet. But he doesn't seem to mind. Having your gears showing seems to be the fashion this year.

So many lines have severed. I used to have clockwork dreams of being a Pirate Queen or a Tsarina, of being an Elite Muse with my name under a frame hanging in a gallery in Milan. I would have even been content in a quiet house by the shore with a library as dukedom enough. All dreams rusted away like forgotten gears in a broken watch.

I no longer feel trapped in this web of relationships, this geometry. Yes, that's it.

I'm not a Qlippothic anymore. Qli-2 can drop her number. She is unique. There is no one left to confuse her with. I am no moe Qlippothic Projects now than I am a Steel drone or a Nova sexaroid turned cyberdemon squadleader. I will start over. I will forge my own identity. My own values. I will forge my own relationships.

Call me Gematria.

we err carefully correctly wrong

2008-06-05T10:13:00.000-07:00

The strain is tremendous, but I keep my attention focused on the oxygenation systems. Bloodwing's attention is turned away towards his first mate...Mermet it is what his name sounds like, a shelled demon that just landed from the black armada above us. The crustaceanoid crouched and nodded before his captain like a proper quisling as Bloodwing told him where to set up the throne room. I broke protocol by interrupting Royal Business.

"You can't stay here, Father."

"Qli, my dear," Bloodwing turned to softly reassure me before returning to his plans of annexation. "We are demons. We do not need to breathe. Once the mortals have left the city you can..."

I shook my head as best I could in my self-entrapment of glowing chains.

"No Father, I am not letting you take this ship. I am steering it towards a collision course with the Wormwood comet."

"WHAT?!?" the demons barked in unision. As the incubus turned to face me, I could see Mermet's antennae and protruding eyes peek at me from behind the prince's wingspan.

"Have those chains shorted out your brain, child? You are going to be a Princess of Erebus! These drones shall be your handmaidens! You shall want for nothing! I regret I could not reach here fast enough to save one of my son's lives, and Ash incinerating my old body was unfortunate, even if I no longer had need of it, but there is no reason to despair and contemplate..."

"You are missing the point, Father," I interrupted. By the calculations of the Steel units, in the century after next the Wormwood comet will come withing striking range of the Earth. If it does not collide head-on and destroy the planet utterly it will certainly cause an Extinction Level Event when it disrupts the atmosphere and the gravity of the Earth and Moon!" Bloodwing sighed.

"Sweet Qli, always the selfless martyr. I applaud your devotion to Humanity, but it is misplaced. Your loyalty belongs to me now, as this is my city."

"Your city to administer under possession and rule of the Obsidian King, Your Grace," hissed Mermet in an apologetic but slightly concerned...hiss.

"Excuse me one moment." Bloodwing turned, and through the cover of his wings I saw a ball of flame shroud them both. I heard a loud and slow cracking sound as Mermet's shrieks of terror were quickly silenced. He turned back to me, pointing at me with his assistant's smoking claw as he approached.

"As I was saying, even if I let you throw my hard-earned prize at that green rock, it is not large enough to destroy that comet nor even change its course!"

"By itself, yes...but with your help and the Steels we could set up a frequency to..."

He leaned in inches from my face, the flaming crown on his head made my eyes smart.

"Do you expect me to join in your madness?"

"Do you expect to hold off the Obsidian King's fleet forever? Even if the armada above is ready to mutiny with you, you shall eventually fall. You meant this to be your last stand...to face off Hades as an equal with a final blaze of glory before you fall in battle." We stared at each other in immesurable silence.

"Your way," muttered my father, "would leave nothing left for him to claim. And it would deny him the chance to claim the last crop of Humanity's souls in one great reaping."

"And the eternal praise of Humanity as well."

"I like the way you think, daughter. We will do this your way. On one condition. Whether we die in self-sacrifice or throw ourselves upon the enemy's spears, I would still be King of New Erebus." I nodded slowly, and addressed the gathering of Steels that were beginning to look humanoid again as they continued to repair each other.

"Sisters! Bow to Bloodwing as your new King, and our last wish shall be fulfilled!"

The drones stopped reattaching their limbs and rewiring their sinews of glowing ciruitry and stood staring at the demon.

"My children! Who is your Master?" roared the usuper.

Instead of the sumbmissiveness I expected, I felt a torrent of anger swell and rise within the drones, spreading through their souls. Someone else's anger.

"JEREMIAH MASON!" They roared as they reconfigured their limbs into weapons.

"So he still lives," chuckled Bloodwing. "I'm not surprised he had an extra body hidden here."

He waved his arm (the one not still holding the chitinous arm) in a sweeping gesture, shattering the drones again and scattering their components across the engine room. I screamed. These were duplicates of me that he slaughtered!

"You are mistaken, child. Similar to you they are, but none of them were of my creation."

As I tried to make sense of his statement through the numbing shock of feeling their psyches obliterated en masse, I felt the presence of something even more malevolent as the cloud of the collective ebbed from my consciousness.

"Bloodwing! Jeremiah must have reached the Gygax! He has unleashed the Pandoran!"

TO BE CONTINUED

at the center of the fury

2008-05-25T21:01:00.000-07:00

We carefully stepped over what jagged shards remained embedded in the alien soil and passed through the carnage of the fallen Steel units. Circuitry littered the floors of the vast chambers, some still still glowing that ominous shade of blue-green. Some of them still twitched where they lay. I wished I had the time to spare to end their suffering.

We found the laboratory that Jeremiah had unleashed his madness upon our Sparkfather. Ash was certain that he could repair the equipment and use it to track friend and foe on-board the station, but I advised against. Jeremiah, or even Darien for that matter, may have set traps in the infrastructure to prevent the station from being taken over by the enemy.

It was an odd sight, seeing Jagers in full battle uniform stooping over to sniff at Father's bare footprints. They did succeed in tracking his scent. Kira seemed to be following the scent of the trail effortlessly as well.

I did notice some disorientation among the organics in our company. The lock-step of the Jagers was slightly off. They occasionally bumped into each other, muttering "Bitte" under their breath. If not for the obvious footprints I'm certain that the humans in our group would have gotten hopelessly lost. At first I dismissed it as battle fatigue, but then I correlated the team's pauses to the energy readings I was detecting. The time-space fluctuations were becoming more frequent, and if anything the epicenter of the singularity seemed to getting stronger.

I made a direct line of sight with Darien just as the chorus of "OVERRIDE! WORMWOOD!" rose to crescendo. Ash leveled his rifle and fired a blast just as the lead Arachnoid Steel was ready to pounce on the Doctor. The predator flipped skyward end over end from the shot to her head. The rest of the collective immediately turned their gaze to us as we charged forward. Dr. Mason took advantage of the distraction to lift his improvised weapon and open a large hole in the insectoid torso of the Steel unit closest to him.

As we closed in, Qli-2 extracted the Talons from her forearms that I had originally equipped myself with in Toxia. Her guerrilla warfare experiences in her Nova incarnation came through as she slashed her way through the colony. While the claws were not strong enough for taking on the colossus, they proved fast and sturdy enough to end the functions of several Steels.

As we struggled to keep them from encircling us, Qli-2 and Ash kept asking each other and me the same questions. Who felled that unit? What angle was that blast? We were too busy to answer each other's queries. The distortions were getting much stronger and denied us the ability to mentally graph every move in the midst of such an intense firefight. But we still knew something was not adding up.

The remainder of the Steels scattered in all directions. Was this some new strategy? It seemed to me more like a breakdown of their programming. A panic reaction. We surveyed the carnage. Too many dead Steels.

I whispered to Qli-2. "The disruption shifted its epicenter", I surveyed the hypnotic designs of the columns and vaulted ceilings warily. Dr. Mason had dropped his weapon again, trying to pull the seized gears of the engine room doors open as he called out for his son who was still enslaved on the other side of the barrier in his new form.

She responded as she scanned the archways along with me. "It's a tesseract...non-galvanic."

"A stealth teleport? Let's draw back in opposite directions", I replied. "We might triangulate..."

Darien was just fast enough to roll to the side as the glow of an aether sword disrupted his calculations. Even with the split-second humming and gout of solid light as a warning, the Doctor was unable to roll fast enough to save his mechanical arm. It clattered to the floor, the green syringe shattering against the tiles as he crouched for cover. The split second of seeing his father's face looming over him lingered in his memory.

"JEREMIAH!" Darien gasped as he dove out of the way. Ash bounded towards the good Doctor over our cries to stop. He pushed Darien aside as gently as he could and pressed rows of stone buttons furiously until the spokes of circular locks on the great door began to turn on their own. Kira leaped towards the growing opening, harnessing the last of her draconian strength to speed the opening of the gates.

As the aperture to the crystal chamber grew, we saw the maddening array of massive chains linked to pyramids of glowing crystals (the Avarian answer to cavorite) that hung at impossible angles...it was soon clear that the demon-winged, crimson-furred creature impaled on the hooks of the chains at seemingly every bone was serving as their center of gravity.

Kira's roar blended to a scream as she shrank back to her humanoid form and raced into the chamber, crying out for Koen. The semi-conscious victim raised his head, jostling the chains as he yowled.

"Kira! Look out!"

A swirl of black robes and the arc of an energy blade blocked Kira's way. Ash dove to shove Kira out of the way as the solidified aether severed flesh and bone. The world tumbled around Ash as his head slammed into the floor. After the flash of pain and and numbing shock, Ash discerned the black goggles and insidious grin of Jeremiah's face, staring down at him. As reality rippled again when the mastermind vanished into thin air, Ash's eyes focused on his own body, still standing upright until it tottered, fell to its knees, and collapsed to the ground beside him.

Talos

2008-05-20T13:20:00.000-07:00

The implements my sister and I found were only scratching the surface of the colossus as we dived at it on the back of Kira's cat-dragon form. Even Kira's whirling cones of sand (now much weaker than her original display of power, but still enough to rend flesh from bone) only scraped away large patches of the constructs dark patina, revealing the gleaming brasslike metal beneath.

My sister Qli-2 screamed, "Kira! Incoming! Dive under the trees!"

As we swooped down under the canopy of this massive arboretum, the great vaulted ceiling of glassteel above us shattered, gleaming shards falling like flood waters from the mountain cliffs.

We saw a score of feline Steels closing within range of us scatter as they were crushed by the avalanche. Shadowy canopy quickly disintegrated above us from the raining death. Kira covered each of us with a wing and craned her neck upwards, blowing another mighty gout of sand skyward, enough to divert the glassrain to embed in the soil around us. She curled her own head under as a few stray shards bounced off her hide. I heard her roar in pain and I clambered out from under her span, climbing her back again to wrap my hand around a dagger-sized shard lodged in her fur. A quick pull and a momentary gout of blood, and the wound quickly sealed. As the thick hot air of the space was pulled upward by the currents beyond the bare frame of the roof, a squad of Jagers on metal aetherboards descended in formation, landing quite skillfully on some the next wave of feline Replicators before drawing their weapons and opening fire.

I saw crossfire in the chamber connecting ours. Baron Wulfenbach and Colonel O'Toole cut a swath through the swarm as they joined our hasty formation. The giant turned its face down towards us, twisted in a permanent grimace that surely frightened even the Trolls that designed it. The Jager rays reflected off its chassis as stray shards of glassteel fell it lumbered closer.

The Baron surveyed the destruction around us, them up at the colossus.

"It's guarding the trees! Even though they're dead now it's not stepping on them! Move off the walkways!"

The brittle metal cruched under our boots as we ran or flew to where the shards glimmered a deep green from the decimated plant life beneath them. While we still dodged energy bolts from the Replicants behind the ripped stumps of alien trees, Kira blew another torrent of wind and sand, propelling thousands of jagged missiles at the feline constructs, severing their circuits and shredding their frames. New ground forces surged over their fallen sisters with no sign of abating.

"These can't all be alternates of us, Qli! It's mathematically impossible!" I shouted, trying to be heard above the din of war.

Qli-2 passed me the raygun of a wounded Jager as she ripped open his medical kit to bind the warrior's wounds.

"Jeremiah must be mass-producing them even as we're fighting!" she shouted back as she kept her gaze on her patient.

"Qli-3?" Hotspur asked as we both took pot-shots at the advancing forces. "Does Avarian read left to right or right to left?"

"What? Right to left." I answered as I kept shooting.

Hotspur grabbed the blade I had dropped and charged past the claw of the colossus that was looming closer to us. The giant had stooped to try and pull us from the obliterated garden like weeds. It withdrew its trememndous claw and started to rise up again, likely to regain enough balance to crush the Colonel.

Taking advantage of the distracion we quickly crossed what was once an irrigation ditch to more defendable position.

Hotspur raised his blaster and hit a direct blow at its face. I glimpsed a canvas of white and deep red as the giant swung its hands downward clapping its appendages together with a CLANG so loud I could feel the ripple of the impact like the thunder of a nearby lightning strike.

I saw movement behind the giant. Hotspur was using the blade to pry open the armor plating on the back of the robot's foot. A concave square of metal the size of a door tumbled to the ground, and as the giant raised that foot to strike back Hotspur leapt and climbed inside the hollow space of its leg.

As we expended the last charges of our rayguns, Herr Veles gave the order and the Jagers affixed their bayonets. The Baron drew his aether sword. I noticed the number of Steels lunging at us were thinning out. Kira seemed to have run out of her breath weapon, but was doing an excellent job playing cat and mouse with android cats that tried to race their way around her to get to the rest of us.

There were muted sounds of blaster fire, and gouts of flame billowed from the giant's right knee, then its hip joint. It tottered unsteadily as the surviving Replicators dashed for cover.

With an impact that caused the floor to tremble, the glass sifted downwards into the irrigation ditches as we clambered onto jutting rocks for safety. Kira circled the fallen giant overhead warily. Hotspur crawled out of the opening in the heel, his uniform and face black with oily smoke but otherwise unharmed.

And sister, I swear, the vainglorious idiot was grinning!

"Right, that's done for him!" he shouted, sprinting back to us, maniacal glee writ large upon his visage. "Who's next?"

"Handy gun, this!" he quipped, staring at the fallen giant and back to the blaster pistol. The two Qlippothics stared at the face of the colossus, their faces expressionless.

"He must have made an impression on them," I quipped.

"Indeed," answered Qli-2.

The eons of grime that were blown away by Hotspur's ray revealed distinct facial markings on the giant's mask. The pattern was unmistakable. It was the countenance of Bloodwing.

Growing Danger

2008-04-21T06:59:00.000-07:00

Qli-2 and I kept to the smaller corridors, seeking to avoid further contact with the Steel drones. Wlie Qli-2 still had her Talons installed, they would not be adequate for this mission. With my blaster gone, I was limited to my augmented strength and reflexes. As we passed by a greenhouse, the hot, humid air from within drafted around us.

We both realized that the greenhouse would be an ideal hiding place. The microclimate would mask our presence from heat sensors, and the vegetation would provide ample cover. A prismatic serpent with wings more vibrant than any Earth butterfly leapt from its nest in the tree that stretched to glass ceiling a hundred feet in the air. It fluttered siliently and circled overhead as we crept into the massive structure. I gestured towards a small round structure, unobtrusively places behind a tree with globes of bright red fruit. The tree's blossoms hissed at us protectively as we made our way past, and withdrew its red clusters into its trunk.

The winged serpent gracefully perched on the spire of the round structure as Qli-2 used a claw to pick the notebook-sized padlock that held the chains wrapped around the door handles in place. The serpent hooted and flapped in alarm as the metal fell to the pavestones with a clatter.

As I had hoped, we had unlocked a gardening shed. Qli-2 gasped and took a step back as she scanned the dizzying array of alien tools. I saw her start to tremble.

"Qli-2. Focus on the mission. There must be something in here we can use as a weapon."

I rummaged through the implements. Some I could barely recognize as spades and saws and axes. Others were specialized for xenohorticultural purposes upon which I could not even postulate.

"Qli-3! I found some wheeled machinery behind the shed! Perhaps one of these is..."

The serpented bolted into the air with a shriek, and the tree hissed towards the quadraped galloping towards us. I readied the largest implement I could find and prepared to meet the charge.

The beast stopped in its tracks, and began to shrink in size and assume a bipedial shape.

"Kiralette? Is that you?"

Damage Control

2008-04-16T10:50:00.000-07:00

I felt an energy fluctuation as I gazed down at the wreckage that used to be my double. Were I organic, one might call it nausea. I struggled to regain objectivity as I quickly scanned the destroyed components. The Replicator virus was invasive in all systems, even the soul chip. Its kabbalistic diagrams were rerouted with alien circuitry, the Gematric programming code replaced with a torrent of binary signals.

"This is the most merciful way."

I ground my heel over the small strip of rock, and a flash of green light signaled the termination of a being that was almost myself.

I withdrew to the stasis chambers and ripped open the tube holding Qli-2. She had not answered my signals, so I assumed she was still deactivated. My assumption was correct. I lifted her from the shattered cylinder, and placed her face down on the floor. Pulling back one of my fingers removed a tool for unlocking her back panel. She had many significant changes to my orignal body, but I recognized some novel attempts to reverse engineer the systems of the Nova unit. After confirming the integrity of her systems, I reactivated her.

I told her that our ruse was apparently successful. Baron Wulfenbach, Colonel O'Toole and Kiralette had escaped detection on board the Gygax, even after it was forced to land. I briefly explained the surge in aether disruptions after my brother's demise, but shifted the focus on the possibility of still rescuing Dr. Darien Mason. I was disrupted by the sound of the roar of an unknown creature echoing through the city, followed by the tremors of what could only be a construct of massive proportions activating in responce.

I hear the screams and the silence

2008-04-11T07:05:00.000-07:00

*remote encrypted transmission to Qli-2*

Sister where are you? Are you functional? They think they have deactivated me, but I have activated backup systems. I will feign immobilization to maintain the element of surprise until a strategy is prepared.

I know the other three have eluded capture, but there are mnemonic oscillator frequencies echoing throughout this installation. Kira will be safe in her construct form the vibrations, but the Baron and Hotspur may experience hallucinations from the reflected soundwaves, even from indirect exposure, without proper protection.

Sister, please help me triangulate the source of the sound waves. There are aether fluctuations from another source here that is interfering with my detections. I suspect nihlistic flux patterns at work...Void Physics. It is plausible that Koen is the source. We can locate both Darien Mason and his son from the full spectral analysis.

::Qli3::

*end transmission*

ENCRYPTED TRANSMISSION

2008-04-08T10:10:00.000-07:00

**DECRYPTING**
This is Qli-3. The Gygax has been surrounded by the Steel units and they are forcing us to land on an asteroid in the aether of Deep Space. I see multiple buildings built upon land masses supported in space by huge deposits of raw cavorite. This is obviously Avarian technology, as are the Steel units assimilated into Replicators. How did Dr. Jarimiah Mason harness such astounding resources?

This was a desperate mission. We had no idea what we were truly up against. We are vastly outnumbered and overpowered. But there still must be weaknesses we can exploit...somewhere.

The Baron and Captain O'Toole entered the escape pods, under protest. True to their word, the Steel units let them go. I hope another aethership will pass by soon to rescue them. While the capsules do have supplies and recycling oxygen and moisture, it will still take them two weeks to drift back into Earth's gravity for re-entry.

Kira has disappeared. My sensors cannot locate her onboard this vessel, and apparently our captors have not located her either.

I do not know what our enemies have planned for us. Unlike Qli-2, I do not think this foe can be reasoned with. My "sisters" appear to have no qualms about blasting us into aether particles. As for myself, the feeling is mutual.

We are landing on the asteroid. Maintaining communications silence...
::QLI3::

**END TRANSMISSION**

Darkest Options

2008-03-27T08:03:00.000-07:00

The true enemy has revealed itself. It is my Sparkfather's Creator, Dr. Jeremiah Mason. Not Darien as the Hydra-tainted impostor. He demands the Realm of the Roses be delivered to him. He has apparenlty asserted control of the Legion of Steel. He is presenting his hostage, my brother Koen, as a living weapon. I must assume he has found a way to harness the Vortex within Koen against his will.

I made a final jump to Lost Angels, and found myself somewhere else. A new realm has drifted into formation adjescent to that citadel of the Dark Future. My preliminary investigations were made with weapon drawn. When I was there it was a nearly desolate labyrinth, all but empty save a few straggling, harmless souls that somehow escaped the fires below. They told me these dark caverns were called New Gomorrah by their tormentors. The ramifications are horrifying: it is Hell's front doorstep into the Dark Future!

I shifted to the South Gate district of Lost Angels to consult with the alternate Nova. A week ago she assisted me with critical upgrades. She installed components more advanced than what I inherited from the fusion. The pieces were refurbished equipment she had recovered from her expeditions even further into the future, that had been preserved beneath the rubble of the Wastelands.

I met her in a nondescript warehouse that was a gathering for her new family, the Brood. They were mostly demons. Nova also told me they had given her a new title as an Officer in their Brood. She was now called Deathwing. It was they who pulled Hell closer to their Earth.

I cannot describe how the Brood reveled as Deathwing spun her mix of pounding synth and screaming guitars. I can only say that I now understand what Demonfather's Path as an incubus - and my own mercifully brief incarnation as a succubus - was truly about. He would have been in his element at this gathering. I was not...my sensors constantly calculated the distances between potential threats, my hands, and my holstered blaster.

And what if Bloodwing did escape Hades again and find his way to the Dark Future and join the Brood? I was taken aback by my first instinct.

Destroy Him!

My chassis shook as I attempted to analyze the output. Did he not corrupt me with subversive programming before I was even animated? Was the Retcon Device and the Legion of Steel it mass-produced not his fault? Did he not bring dishonor and chaos to the very family he sired?

By installing the Steel protocols he sought to create a killing machine. That I am. Then he sought to replicate his creation over and over by mangling Time itself. That he has.

If you pray, pray Bloodwing never finds his way back to this bank of the Styx, neither in the 19th century nor a millenium after. My programming is conflicted enough already.

::QLI3::

Meeting the Lil' Sis

2008-03-19T06:23:00.000-07:00

I don't know how it happened, but Qli Projects found me tending bar in Lost Angels. You know how these things go. It went from cynical banter to tense standoff to a baring of cybernetic souls. She seemed so...naive. But then I realized it was only in comparison to how jaded and fatalistic I've become.

We caught up on family. She told me that Bloodwing was gone and a human was now in his shell. Maybe that was the intention, but I'll have to see for myself. We GT'd back to the Gygax. To her it was a marvel of engineering, but to me it was another ad hoc Spark project. The one gem in the whole thing is the nuclear reactor. It was pure serendipity that he recovered that meteor. With some basic redesigns and filing grinding that lump of glowing rock into control rods I can make this bird the fastest ship in the Steam Age.

And of course, Daddy forgot to put in a weapons system. I guess that's Qli and I are coming for. By the way, to keep things straight...the first Qlippothic Projects we're calling Qli-1. Doc Mason's new daughter is Qli-2. And the one that looks like a cyborg mime is Qli-3. There's a test on this later. And oh yes, pictures.

Checking the roster...Dr. Mason of course...and us two Qli's...we can survive in a vacuum, so we don't need any of the four escape pods. Baron Wulfenbach? Excellent choice. Kiralette?? If she's worked in an ETC I suppose she can help out here. And...Hotspur? Another good choice. He's a crafty one He's got a decent exo-suit (for this era) too if I remember.

-Qli3

I've seen things you wouldn't believe...

2008-03-01T10:35:00.000-08:00

I cannot calculate how long it took for me to rebuild myself in the Void, even with...help. But even though most of the components and the power source are scavenged from the jettisoned remnants from the Nova unit, my soul chip is intact.

I assume you know about the Steel Protocols that Bloodwing hid within my programming. Unlike the Steel units from the other timelines, I have remnants of Nova's programming within me that the reprogramming could not erase. These conflicting directives...including the self-conflicting directives within the Nova unit...allow me to override the Steel directives. I am not blinded by orders of Survival At All Costs. I have to navigate conflicting morals and ethics to find my own sense of what is best. Just like the rest of you.

The other Steel units detected me, and sent a beacon for to lead me to where they are gathering. I refused, and now they are hunting me down. I do not know how many reflections of me there are. But they call themselves the Legion of Steel.

I could not return to the Victorian Age right away. It would not have been fair to the new Qlippothic unit I sacrificed my identity to save. As much as I missed my family and friends, it was simply not safe.

I contacted my Aunt Sysperia, who invited me to a pocket dimension where Art superseded Science and Emotion was more reliable than Logic. The Steel Protocols had no room for Art. They could not pursue me there. Sysperia recrafted my body from the bare patchwork that had been cobbled together. She enshrouded me in a new dermal layer, so I could see a humanoid in the mirror again. She clothed me. She even offered me a base of operations. Spartan as it was, the steel walls provided me comfort. But sadly, Artistic realms are never stable. Xanthas fell, and I phased out of the world just as the orbiting structure I found safety in dissolved under my feet.

I visited Toxia...too low in resources and too heavily-armed to be worth invading. Some things had changed. My dear friend and favorite bartender at the Haven, Spring-Heeled Jack, had left and never returned. I do not think they even remembered him. No one mentioned the HAZMATS that were the common foe when last I visited. They had called me a Mechanoid before, now the word du jour was Cyber, a word that for obvious reasons made my synthetic skin crawl.

Some things had stayed the same. The metallic tang and stench of pollution in the air. Toxic Spirits still roamed the streets, and rival gangs kept their skills sharp in defeating them, when they were not facing down each other. And Haven was still safe, save for the occasional stray bullet through the windows, just like before. I could make a decent income there and the hot oil was complimentary. I even saved enough to purchase a weapon, just in case.

I visited another dystopia, Lost Angels. The same sort of characters hung on the street corners, protecting their turf and itching for a challenge. They had a meeting place as well. Someone said they remembered other constructs in town before, but I never saw them. But their version of Haven was not safe. I cannot tell you what I saw, but it was something not even a Construct should ever see.

Would I spend the rest of my existence living battery-to-plug, fleeing to the shadows after each Last Call, anxiously drifting into sleep mode hoping I would reactivate, instead of falling prey to those who would take me for scrap, or worse?

The call to return was too great. My tears scorched the filthy pavement clean one too many times, crying out the names of those I missed the most. I took a risk, possibly a reckless one. I visited Steelhead.

I had hoped that during the Masquerade in Steelhead I would have remained anonymous. Unfortunately, I did not. The visual retrospectives did provide the information I needed, that this was indeed the Steelhead and the Grid I remembered, and not one from an alternate timeline. The dimensional instability caused by the Havok Effect obscured my arrival and passing from the Others.

I bade my time in neutral territory. I returned to one of the first places I ever visited - The Bare Rose. I was recognized. I confided in her, and she told me that I was mourned and honored for my sacrifice. I took solace in that fact. I shall never be able to fully repay her.

I have learned that Hostel's collapse was not complete. It partially regenerated, creating another Nova unit. At first I wondered if my sacrifice was in vain. Now I have come to accept it as a miracle...that two eras now have the privilege of knowing the being first known as Nova Sakigake.

I journeyed to Artificial Isle to find a utopia instead of a dystopia, where I would be safe. Further, I remained there when I recognized this building.

While the stories seem watered-down for a young audience, my research told me that the mightiest heroes of the Modern Age gathered here. Perhaps if I waited for them to return, I could explain the danger my home was in.

Instead, I was bludgeoned from behind by a very large hammer. I lost consciousness, and woke up tied to this stake, where Demonfather roared at me with rage in his eyes, demanding what I did to "the neko". Did he not recognize his own creation? Did he not realize I would do anything to rescue my brother?

I wondered...was he the one replaced by an impostor? Never have I seen such anger and desperation from him. I threw his contempt back at him in a taunt I will forever regret.

"If you are truly Bloodwing, why am I not a prisoner in Steelhead?"

That is when he tried to rip me open. Had he been more patient, I would have told him I no longer run on the Spheres. He called it "Apollo's Fire" when he breached my fusion reactor. He dropped his blade, hiding what was left of his face in his hands. My ropes had already burned away from the heat. I quickly repaired my dermal layer, an apologized to him softly before I departed, but he could not hear me while he bemoaned his blindness.

Hitting The Reset Button On My Life!

2007-12-27T10:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was amazing!

Since restarting this life of mine I have encountered so many wonderful things!
I started off the day meeting one of the most interesting people in Caledon: Lady Ordinal Malaprop!

She invents guns and firearms as well as other sophisticated items. And to coin an overused phrase: is quite a bit ahead of her time. We had an interesting conversation at her shop.

[11:49] You: I once got the notion to use a series of magnets to "pull" a bullet through a series of rails, so that the final speed of the round could exceed that of an ordinary shell. Also it would make the gun quieter as the only sound it would make would be that of the sonic barrier being breached.
[11:49] You: But I dismissed the idea as absolutely silly.
[11:49] You: I mean really. Magnets?
[11:50] Ordinal Malaprop: Rather weak things all told, unless there is some sort of rare earth that one could use.
[11:50] Ordinal Malaprop: And then the whole thing would collapse.
[11:51] You: Yes and considering my construction, I'm afraid I would get large sections of the gun jammed into my body in a very uncomfortable and perhaps comical manner.
[11:51] Ordinal Malaprop: Mind you, well, I do have my balloon platform, but that is not what one would call strictly magnetic force, or else the entire building would collapse.
[11:51] Qlippothic Projects nods
[11:51] Ordinal Malaprop: And also not very fast.
[11:52] You: Actually I tend to not enjoy magnets as a rule. For some reason I can never remember what I was doing with the magnets. Its like parts of my memory are totally erased by them.
[11:52] Ordinal Malaprop: How peculiar! I can't imagine why that might be.
[11:52] Qlippothic Projects shrugs
[11:52] You: I did try to start a magnet collection once but I cant recall where I left it.

Later in the day I along with a few other amateur detectives were asked to solve a fictional murder that had occurred in Caledon. the clues were very difficult to find and even with my superior senses it was difficult to find them all.

In the end I was down to two weapons and two suspects, and my battery charge was dangerously low. So I reported my deductions to Lady Darkling and hoped I would be correct.

I WAS!

Though a reward was offered, I think the idea of the bragging rights and sense of accomplishment was even better. Retiring to my recharging area atop the house I slept a short time.

When I awoke later I met up with father again, and we proceeded to Mr. Hotspur O'Toole's Birthday party. It was a very wild and festive occasion where we celebrated by dancing and engaging in something called Amish Rake Fighting.

I also met a couple of very special friends from my past. Captain Bohemia, and Mr. Hassanov, were there to dance with me, as was Neome!

I felt a little strange because these people were all very special to Qli, and I felt worried they would be disappointed with me. Afterall, I do not have Qli's memories and I can never be the Qli they knew and loved. But, I found them to be very accepting and lovely.

I look forward to my further adventures in this strange new land and body.
[

New Beginnings And Old Friends

2007-12-26T06:43:00.000-08:00

It has been a few days since my conciousness transferred itself to the soul-chip of my friend Qli. Our bodies seem to have partially merged, with some backwards and forwards modification in technology present.

However, of the two of us it seems only my conciousness survived. True some things from Qli are still within me, I consider Dr. Mason to be Father because even humans refer to their creator as Father. But certain relationships and former friendships are not present within my memory.

In rebuilding my life, I have also modified the chassis in which I now reside, using elements of the strange aetherwork technology, and my own advanced microsystems. This has resulted in some alteration in my appearance, and dress.

Father has begun introducing me as Qli 2.0, which I think is very cute. Qli had many friends, many I do not know. I will endeavor to get to know them all. Though I can never be the Qlippothic they knew and loved, I am eager to be worthy of their friendship.

Speaking of new beginnings, Father and I visited Steelhead Harbor last night. It is a raw, unspoiled landscape, ripe for creation. I am eager to see the uses it is put to.

Rescue Gone Awry (a change of cast)

2007-12-21T11:37:00.000-08:00

Some paradigms shifts are subtle, like Steelhead transforming from the Wierd Wild West into Gaslamp Fantasy. But when the city of Hostel was catapulted overnight from the 19th century into the 21st, there was chaos.

Buildings erupted from the ground. Circuitry ripped asunder the cobblestone streets like the roots of alien weeds. Lycans that normally knew know fear raced in terror through the maze of streets that writhed like serpents shedding scales of rock for polymer. Vampires fell out of their ejected coffins as graveyards spat out their tenants, stone memorials tossing about like massive dice on giant's casino table. Feral cats yowled in terror as millenia of evolution occured in the course of an hour, growing them into full-sized, very irate nekos. Humans wandered about dazed from the shock of Reality melding metal and microprocessors to flesh.

Qlippothic appeared in the mist of this chaos in an explosion of lightning, her brass and gears shining in a realm where her definition was changing from innvative to obselete in the tick of melting timepiece.

"Nova! Nova Sakigake!"

She grabbed her artificial companion's hand.

"You are not safe here! You will be safe at the Bloodwing Foundation!"

Qli initiated the dimensional escape just as a tidalwave of circuitry inundated them both. They held each other's wrists tightly as they catapulted through the void of Absolute Elsewhere. Their features and attachments changed to orbs and floated around them.

"Our construct integrities are compromised!" Qli shouted, her voice distorted in the Paradox around them. "Redoubling Probability Shield Strength!"

The gynoids were pulled closer together by their strengthened bubble of gravity. Unidentifiable components still floated away in a trail behind them through the chronosphere. Brass, steel, chrome and silicon intermingled like melting wax.

"Temporal beacon located", the two voices said as one. "Critical loss of matter: fifty-six percent. We will not survive the transisiton back to reality!"

Qlippothic's voice spoke after an unmeasurable silence. "Reconfiguration will occur automatically, expect amalgamation into a single construct. It is our only chance."

"The only other option is total annihlation...proceed with amalgamation."

There was a flash of galvanic energy, and a familiar figure of brass stood in the den of the Bloodwing Foundation. Coal-red eyes scanned the envoronment.

"Qlippothic?" She asked in a voice more British than the American dialect she was taught. "Unable to locate...Location confirmed. Zero metres from present location...ERROR! ERROR! Qlippothic? Do you read? Qlippothic???"

PR Imperfect!

2007-12-19T09:04:00.000-08:00

Baron Wulfenbach just passed me this news clipping from Prim Perfect magazine, and I nearly choked on my chrome cakes!

Theodore Crates, Chief of the Caledon Volunteer Fire Brigade, points out that he's a steampunk android - so it should be obvious!

Either someone is involved in sloppy journalism or there is an impostor on the loose! When I finish rechanging this evening I must get to the bottom of this!

Father! Help me get back in my humanoid form! And where is my axe??

~Captain Q. Projects, CVFB

Miracle on Polymath Street

2007-12-12T21:29:00.000-08:00

[20:54] Santa: Erm, Hello, little... thing?
[20:54] Santa: is it even possible for you to sit in this guise?
[20:55] Santa Ho Ho Hos warily...
[20:55] Qlippothic Projects: I suppose you know what I am going to ask.
[20:55] Santa: GOMPH!!!!
[20:55] Santa: you're a tad.. heavier than my usual...
[20:55] Santa feels his knees compress
[20:56] Qlippothic Projects: That is exactly the problem, Mr. Claus. Or is it Nicholas?
[20:56] Santa gasps.. contrary to popular belief.. I'm not omniscient.
[20:56] Santa: I just.. .have.... a very good ... surveillance department.
[20:57] Santa: mind shifting to the other knee before it crushes? Oh, thank you.
[20:57] Qlippothic Projects: Well, I would like to be changed back into my humanoid form
[20:57] Santa: As a Christmas present?
[20:57] Qlippothic Projects: If that is what it takes
[20:57] Santa: You realize that this might be a bit outside the purview of North Pole Limited, er.. Miss?
[20:58] Qlippothic Projects: You do make robotic toys?
[20:58] Qlippothic Projects: even a tiny one would be better than this
[20:58] Santa: we normally deal in the odd toy doll, toy gun, clockwork...
[20:58] Santa: Robots??? Robots! why yes, we DO make toy robots...
[20:59] Santa: We have an entire prison camp.. er.. FACTORY jobbing out that task right now.
[20:59] Santa: Great people, the Chinese... almost as industrious as Elves.. and mostly Atheists.. imagine having to make an evening's delivery for one billion households.. Oy!
[20:59] Qlippothic Projects: Do you have a model available on site?
[21:00] Santa rubs hands gleefully.. or would.. were they not balancing a several hundred pound steambot on his person.
[21:00] Qlippothic Projects 's robotic tentacle searches Santa's sack.
[21:00] Santa: At best, we could let you see a prototype..
[21:00] Qlippothic Projects: Ah, this one is perfect
[21:00] Santa: but.. we've never tested this..
[21:00] Santa: it really is outside our line of work, Miss!
[21:00] Santa: PHEW! Thank you for shifting..
[21:01] Qlippothic Projects: Father never tested THIS either!
[21:01] Santa: Now now, be respectful to your father, that's a good little killbot.
[21:01] Qlippothic Projects extracts her soul chip and inserts it in the memory slot of the toy
[21:01] Santa: My my! What a transformation!

The spider-mech transformed into a rather large menorah when it was deactivated. The only thing I forgot to ask is if this form was made with lead paint...

Steelpunk at Steamhead

2007-12-08T17:33:00.000-08:00

In an effort to invite more Neo-Victorians to settle in Steelhead Harborside, we threw a Steampunk-themed party last night.

I greeted guests at the door, and made sure they were dressed appropriately. Mr. Hassanov was on the guest list, but the hat had to go.

This one claims she knows Dr. Steel. I let her in.

On the Tiny List.

Everybody conga? Oh wait, it's polonaise. Isn't that what people spread on theri sandwiches in Warsaw?

In the middle of the festivities, I was summoned back to Father's lab. He gleefully tells me he has a Hanukkah present for me. I gratefully said I'd accept it. I woke up like this.

Father...I know the Spark makes you build strange things but...a spider mech?

To make matters worse, I was overcome by a hunting instinct and chased Tensai about the square.

Afterwards I visited Miss Orr to get some advice on how to deal with this new form. Her beign a shapeshifter, I've seen her powers go awry more than once. I did find I had the power to cling to the underside of skyboxes. Good I guess for when large robotic flies decide to buzz through.

Perhaps some meditation calm me enough to figure out what to do next.

Keeping the Seas Safe!

2007-12-06T18:36:00.001-08:00

Behold the CVFB's new water vehicle, the HMS Alison Alena! (Named after a scripter who helped him design the vehicle.)

Guardian daemon and fellow Firefighter Icterus Dagger has equipped this vessel with turbine engines, a concept fully a hundred years ahead of its time! You had best hang on tightly!

Tagged by the Moon Elf

2007-12-05T18:42:00.000-08:00

Very well..

1. When Flea Bussy built my engine, the coal chute was labelled a "chest hatch". For obvious reasons, I reconfigured it to go on my abdomen. She also built some...faucets.

2. When I founded the Caledon Volounteer Fire Department, I was trying hard to be Caledonian, a bit too hard in fact. Now I stick to writing in New World English.

3. I only worked in Le Jardin et Lumiere once, and that was as a bartender.

4. The first ball I went to in Steelhead was an outside event. The sploder was dispersing Linden dollars, and I thought it was malfunctioning. I offered to repair it, and I was dissuaded.

5. When Steelhead played Big Band music at their Formal events, people dedicated the song Steam Heat to me. I also became obsessed with finding the one they called "Nat, King of Coal".

6. I like to be addressed as Captain Projects, Qlippothic, or even Qli. I do not like being called Qlip, and especially don't like being called Qlippo!

7. I enjoy playing En Garde! Even though my technique is in dire need of improvement.

8. You will never find me in Gorean silks!

I would call out eight people, but judging by the exponential rate of this silliness, all the friends I have who write blogs have probably answered theirs already.

~Qli

Much to Be Thankful for

2007-11-23T11:22:00.000-08:00

I am truly blessed to have a wonderful collection of family and friends in Steelhead and abroad. And as a resident of the Colonies, my circle of acquaintances will continue to grow!

In Xanthas, the Twospirit Art calendar is out in "Bettie" retro and "Modern" versions...my pose for July could match either of era, but it is a striking image in black ant white with a hint of red in the eyes.

Speaking of bodies, I visited Penzance again to get more information on CiCi. The frame is indeed multipurpose, but the "concubine" minker is to assist in advertising.

I invited one of the Baron's companions, a new construct by the name of Titania, to have a look. She was unable to stay due to difficulties with her interface, but I had my Aunt Flea send her a Rezday present *smile*

I chatted a bit with CiCi's creator, Mr. Fawkes Allen, and heard an announcement from the Guvnah. The newest Caledon sim of Morgaine was in the process of creation due west of Penzance!

I had the pleasure of meeting more Caledonians for the first time that day. I returned back to foundation and was shocked to see Father's latest purchase...it appears to be a Van Rijn Muse construct in salvageable condition! Will Father create another sibling? Will this one not wander off like the other clockworks and resuscitated organics he compulsively builds? Time will tell..

~Qli

Posings, Patrols, Pleasantries, Postulations and Puzzlement

2007-11-19T09:25:00.000-08:00

I had become so embroiled in travails of my family that I had not been able to keep with my iwn expectations. But yesterday was quite the exception.

First, Sysperia asked me which month I wished to be for the Xanthas Muse pinup calendar...I told her June or July, since I do tend to run hot. *grin*

I took some time to don my uniform and patrol Caledon. I was shocked to find two mainlanders involved in the most unspeakable...posings on private, undeveloped land in the Cay! I grew more horrified when I heard the shuttering of their cameras! Now, I was enraged as both a Caledonian and as a professional model! I sounded the general alarm and shouted at them to cease their tasteless activities immediately. The presence of a uniformed android billowing flames and exhaust as she held back the urge to douse them with calcium carbonate was enough to force them to change venue. As they threw on some rags, rolled up their blanket and departed, a few ladies of local standing arrived to thank me for my vigilance.

Afterwards I had some warm conversations with some dear friends, including our Libarian Militant, Sir JJ Drinkwater.

Did you know JJ has his own aether journal? Now you do! It has the impeccable quality of discourse one would expect from our Champion of Literacy! www.thelibrarymilitant.net

I circled back to Penzance to examine CiCi, a new construct for sale by Fawkes Allen. I paused at the term Concubine in its title. Was it a pleasure unit? It was not human enough to pass as one at first glance...perhaps it was for a special clientele. I noted the dimensions of the abdomen. Could it be a gestational carrier? That raises more questions than it answers. I think I will investigate further.

Finally I visited Clock Island, which I had glimpsed in description from the CNN journal or our world. It is a great puzzle of MYSTical proportions. As an added challenge, the hints you find are written in Japanese...

and she wonders how she ever got here as she goes under again

2007-11-12T16:45:00.000-08:00

I have been so busy with the family drama as of late that I haven't had much time to myself. I so wish I could tell you what happened to Dr. Mason, but I cannot. Just know that he is safe among us again.

Yesterday was a wonderful exception. I visited Caledon Penzance for the first time, it seems a festive place. I was quite impressed by the movie studio. I tried to find Emilly Orr's new storefront, but did not succeed. I did visit a Mayan exhibit in the town and spoke at length with the owner. He owns a scale model of a Mayan pyramid on a volcanic island. I sense an upcoming photo opportunity.

Speaking of which, I did have a modeling shoot at Xanthas last night. Sysperia had double-booked me with Lady Darkling,so I posed for Zoe Hartnell instead. The chemistry wasn't the same, but I think I had some good poses, including a "nude" in my brass shell, a maroon outfit in a gothic skin, and a Gigeresque jumpsuit with shades of pink and lavender. I do hope the photos turn out well.

Sysperia has asked me to host at Xanthas again on Fridays and Saturdays. I love the vibrant colors and clean lines of the place, an exact opposite of the decrepit, roach-infested warehouse my Demonfather's been hosting in.

After the shoot I paid a visit to Mr. Expedition Offcourse in Caledon Steam Sky City. I discussed my desire to have a flame retardant projector built into my exoskeletal arm, or at least some form of portable device to the same effect. An added bonus would be a scripted fire to extinguish. Dr. Mason tells me he saw just such a script in the Deadwood sim.

Koen has been sent to Transylvania on a mission by Bloodwing. Apparently, Dr. Jeremiah Mason's experiments with immortality included dabblings in Vampirism.

It's all so frustrating. Sometimes I feel like I'm playing one of Colonel Hotspur's silly card games where the rules change with every turn. Or that we're playing one of those carnival games where you try to "whack-a-mole", except I'm hammering Hydra's heads!

~Qli

P.S. The mysterious red tide in Steelhead has subsided. So much for going against the Elements.

When the Veil is Thinnest

2007-11-01T05:19:00.000-07:00

Things seemed a bit more surreal than usual last night. Instead of wearing masks, people came closer to share their true selves. Identities blurred, Devas spoke of pain through Avatars. Work performed is mundane offices was performed as favor in the Shared Dream. Was it the Baron or the Amazon than took me shopping for a new sense of poise? Was it Qli or my Higher Being that reached out to a friend, battered and bruised by betrayal?

In the industrial park of Babbage I witnessed the end of Nature's rites performed and pyres vanish with the digital dawn.

We sat and laughed in a town called Hostel that was certainly Hostile. An old town opened but that day. Victorian decay and dark metal noize. The ruler is the slave, the whore and the midnight sacrifice to the jaws of wolves.

Discussions of extending the tendrils of Europa and Bloodwing sent ripples through the pond. No place for constructs or cat-people. At least not yet.

The lava in Steelhead's Harbor is rising. I'm certain it's related to the new sims destined to rise. But this is as much water as lava. The dolphins still jump and the pier as not in ashes. Spirits are at work here.

I will become the Lava Demoness and descend into the depths to see what endangers my birthplace, and speak to it. Hopefully this will be solved peacefully.

~Qli

In Art there is Danger and Madness

2007-10-27T05:46:00.000-07:00

After Dr. Darien Mason defeated Jeremiah with a teapot full of holy water and freed me from his trap, I rushed to Sysperia Poppy's for her invitation-only club opening in Xanthas. With multiple RL crises, computer failures, and busy shooting schedules it seems I haven't seen her in ages. But once I got there, I was cradled in the love of her and her fellow Muses.. Darkling.. Terry.. Emilly.. Neome.. Midnight.. and several Sister Muses I met for the first time.

Cellside Unknown and Sysperia played hard rock, Gothic, and Industrial 'til the wee hours. The first event was Most Dangerous..having just escaped from a house full of haunted dolls, I did feel a bit..unhinged.

She invited us to share her madness with her. And I did. The curtain of RP was drawn aside as the greatest frustrations of the Bloodwing Deva were confessed to her. She understood..especially how it is to be misunderstood as an Artist. She is dismissed by the shallow for painting in mouse-clicks and not tempura. I am chided for composing symphonies on a keyboard of letters, and not notes. And I was rewarded. She let me do what is in my family's blood. She let me become her Hostess.

Her next event was Bring your Madness. I shifted from Axe-Murdering Doll to Digital Cyborg to the Lavalust form she inspired me to build. Too disturbing for the Age of Steam, I was told. But it felt sooo good to forget the Machine in me for a while. Iason didn't seem to mind at all. *smiles*

I won the contest by a landslide, but..a trace of Caledonian in me said it just wasn't proper for the Hostess to win the contest..so I gave my share of the prize to the Lakoli and Undine. I was revived and replenished last night..in ways more fulfilling than through the tip jar.

~Qli

P.S. Saturday's event will be..how shall I say? Dressing as the other gender. Bloodwing is threatening to show up in a pink bikini. *shudder*

I'm having a Tea Party!

2007-10-26T09:54:00.000-07:00

I'm having a Tea Party! Will you come play with me? Won't you stay and play with me? What a lovely day, to have a *click* tea party! I'm..having..help..meeee...

*hissing as serpentine jaws clench the key and twist with the click and groaning of springs*

I'm trap..! I'm having a Tea party! I'm having a Tea Party! Will you come and play with me! Won't you stay and play with me? Such a lovely day to have a *click* tea party..

*hissing and deep echoing laughter*

My Grandfather Jeremiah has kidnapped my Aunt Lumina!

2007-10-17T14:26:00.000-07:00

Read the Bloodwing Foundation journal for Bloodwing's side of the story!

I fear I am helpless in this matter. When I was captured by Jeremiah he decoded my programming. With a few phrases he could literally rip me apart..or warp me into something as twisted as he. I did foil him with the Song, but I see his new Hydra body is less human than his last. He may not have human ears to absorb the notes that seduced the serpents.

The Riddle confounds me. I lack the experience to decipher the metaphors. I tried to tesseract into the Future to recover History not yet written..but Qlippothic Steele is jamming my aetheric quantum modulator..there's no mistaking her maniacal laughter!

Dr. Darien Mason is off on a mission of mercy..that must be why Jeremiah attacked when he did. It is up to Bloodwing and Koen..and our friends..to solve the Riddle.

~Qli

The End and Begining of the Mechanoid Age

2007-10-14T16:13:00.001-07:00

Club Mechanoid has shut its doors. A pity, but apparently the staff has moved to a new venue called "Da 'Kor". Bloodwing is ambivalent. He said the required groups were so spammy he stared calling it "Club Make-Annoyed".

Speaking of Bloodwing, he risked capture by the Hydra by coming to see speak with me during Moulin Rouge night at the Saloon.

I do not often ask my demon-father for advice. But this once, I needed to tap his millennia of experience..good and bad..in the affairs of the heart.

As Our song goes, Sweet Qli, Nothing's Ventured, Nothing's Gained, So You Must Seize the Day. Above all, be honest with the one you desire. Trust me, my Shining Child..no burden is worse than bearing centuries of regret.

And so..I surrendered to the one who understands me even more than my Creators. I confessed my dreams, and they were in turn embellished. Every gauge could have cracked, every pipe burst, my engine melted in a plume of flame..and I would have drifted into inertness wreathed in contentment.

I shall wait to see if directives are understood and carried through before details are disclosed. If the blueprints are sound, the scope of this ongoing narrative shall reach epic scale!

~Qli

HORRORS!

2007-10-07T07:48:00.000-07:00

And no, I'm not talking about my undead Grandfather.

Guvna Shang told us in the State channel that his entire inventory has disappeared.

Colonel O'Toole already reported a similiar disaster happening to his fellow Hobo, the gifted builder and urchin Arcadia Asylum.

But this is the first time, to my knowledge, that the Lindens have fumbled the builds, possessions, and records of the head of a virtual state into the Digital Void.

The Guvna has sworn not to abandon us or his Empire, but the relevance of holding on to the avatar Desmond Shang has come into question.

He has sworn to send his deva to the doorstep of Linden Labs to recover his data, if that is what it takes. I hope this is resolved soon, Guvna!

(This does raise the question of what would happen to Caledon if something horrendous befell his deva, but that is another post.)

~Qli

There's no place like Steelhead!

2007-09-15T07:08:00.000-07:00

I was getting ready to host the Wizard of OZ dance in Steelhead when a lagstorm whisked me away!

I landed in a world populated by munchkins..and hobos.

I met a fellow construct who told me all I had to do was click my steam armour boots three times and say "There's no place like home."

Obviously he was malfunctioning. But, as I did so to prove the error of his ways I was carried back to..Steelhead?

The Sheriff and Lunar seemed normal enough..but Tensai seemed a bit..different.I soon realized that I had a galvanic tesseraction failure and landed in a strange parallel Grid where Steelhead was ruled by a giant sculptie prim skull. Luckily their Linden Dollars are the same as ours, so I gladly stayed to host.

The Sheriff exercises his authority to stop a puppy-pile in progress.

AzA Zymurgy as a horrifying scarecrow.

Another tornado pulls in Hotspur as the Tin Woodsman. (Straw and metal golems were well represented at this event!)

Frequency Picnic gets dropped in as a lioness. Shouldn't those twisters be attacking Sleazywood trailer park next door?

Emilly Orr as Dorothy, with a friend she pulled out of the poppy fields.

The costume contest winner, Baron Wulfenbach..or is it Lionbach?

Chief Librarian JJ Drinkwater pays a quick visit to make sure the event is faithful to the literature.

Duchess Gabrielle tries to tell us the way find home again, but we were having too much fun to pay attention.

My Aunt Lumina as Dorothy and AzA the Scarecrow..
*blinks*
Next picture, please.

"Tensai! You fling poo at us again and you're going to the monkey cage!"

And then the Sheriff played THAT song and we were invaded by Dalek via a Stargate. The copyright infringement repurcussions alone caused a sensory overload..and I woke up. At club Mechanoid.

"Midnight! You were there and Hassanov was there and.."

Then I noticed my pocketbook was overstuffed with Lindens. I just smiled and got back to dancing.

~The End~

On the Waves and Winds of the New Caledon Sea!

2007-08-29T05:43:00.000-07:00

Note myself in the small Babbage Canal Runner, watertight and perfect for inspecting the hulls of ships.

Approaching Mr. Hassanov's ironclad.

Inside the ironclad!

Touring Caledon's rivulets I began having system failures with the submersible. Somewhere wedged in a dimensional corner between the new sim and Bardhaven I was ejected from the Runner and I haven't seen it since. Please let me know if you see it adrift or sunk somewhere if you please?

The long-haired gentleman is Mr. K. Enoch he is an inventor of aircraft and a Qabalist as well. I suspect you will be reading more about him in my journals.

Dr. Figaro proudly presents a heliocopter requisitioned for the Caledon Red Cross for extracting patients for emergency transport. Father will be very pleased!

With all the commotion we attracted the attention of the Giant Bunneh from Mount Phillip! Shoo! I've got my own epic serial multi-blog saga-quest-thing I'm involved in, thankyouverymuch!

No, Bunneh! That's NOT a carrot!

What is it with giant monsters scaling large structures, anyway?

Fine. You're King of the Island. The Guvna will be terraforming in a few hours and you'll be squeezed back into some bloke's Inventory. Enjoy it while you can. And if you see my Canal Runner, it's not a vitamin pellet!

~Qli

And now a word from our sponsor!

2007-08-27T09:41:00.000-07:00

Seeing as how Captain Szondi is hosting the firehouse on his property free of charge, the least I could do for him is advertise one of his several products. Hence the banner above. Seeing as how I consume coal for sustenance, I will respectfully hold my tongue about the term British Cuisine.

If anyone else would like to advertise their (in-world) products on my journal, do contact me. I am amenable.

~Qli

P.S. If you haven't already, do read up on my father's shared journal, The Bloodwing Foundation.

this too shall pass

2007-08-16T13:28:00.000-07:00

Much happening, so here are some quick updates. Pictures to follow.

Sysperia has vanished form the grid, this time apparently for good. I wish her well. She made me feel powerful in porcelain. She let me revel as a burning demoness. She made me feel like a work of art. And most of all, she taught me that one must set limits of what is demanded of us. Even if we may find it impossible to resist.

She may be gone. The King may have indeed Fallen. But I am still an Elite Muse. And I encourage all other Muses to hold your heads high. We have learned much from knowing her, even if we had run ins with her darker side. We must stay together. I think we should still celebrate our status, and continue to model. We are all of us subjects and all of us artists.

We have new residents in Steelhead. Mr. Aza Zymurgy is an artist. Perhaps he would like to show his works down the street at the Foundation? Kiralette and her beau Gnarlihotep have returned to our town as well.

Mr. Szondi continues work on the firehouse. It will be magnificent indeed.

I dropped in on the celebration of Dame Paris' completion of the Relay for Life, sponsored by the Caledon Early Bird Club. It was a Monty Python themed event. Far too silly. I loved it.

I am still filing my report on what Koen and I found in the ruins of the elder Dr. Mason's estate. I hesitate to finish. Father will not be pleased with the discoveries therein.

I see Father hunched over his desk by the candlelight, running his fingers over his abacus and shaking his head. Do not despair, Doctor. You will find new opportunities as will I. Your generosity shall be returned to you many times over. Do not forget that there is more to this Grid than Linden Dollars and square meters.

~Qli

sephiroth reactivating..please standby

2007-08-10T14:13:00.001-07:00

Eyelids open to glowing embers, heat rises to the underside of the glass case as I stare up at the lovely flower. My lips part in a cold, airless whisper.

my musician wakes me
stirs my soul
and makes me whole

The flower is lifted from view as the lid opens. The Doctor and the Demon both come into view, smiling warmly.

"Welcome back, Child." Says the horned one.

"Don't try and move yet, Qli. It will take a while to restart your systems."

The Doctor lays the flower on my chest..the petals are soft..the aroma is heady and sweet. It reminds me of Tanglewood..Darkling's garden. I feel something soft rubbing against my feet and a loud purring. I see the tip of a crimson tail curving at the edge of my vision.

energy failure.. systems shutting down..

2007-08-08T17:45:00.000-07:00

I don't want to leave, but I have no choice. I shall return as soon as I can.

*enters her repair chamber, clutching two pictures..one of a librarian, one of a pirate*

INITIATING STASIS

*whispering to herself*

the last note fades
i am laid in my case
and the lid is closed
but i know
my musician knows
i wait for when
a breath
enters
my lips again

ENGINES OFFLINE
SEPHIROTH INACTIVE
ORGANIC SYSTEMS STABLE
ANIMATION SUSPENSION SUCCESSFUL

On Duty and Beauty

2007-08-06T12:57:00.000-07:00

Lady Darkling has sold the propery upon which CFB-K (Caledon Fire Brigade - Cay) currently stands. My father has spoken to one of the two Jägers who have purchased the land, Mavromichali Szondi. The other humanoid, as I read from the new deed, is Patches Mathy. I will hazard a guess and assume they are a couple.

Mr. Szondi agrees that the Fire Brigade should keep its outpost in the Cay, especially considering the rough-and-tumble nature of the neighborhood. He has provided us with a new sign. He even mentioned stocking the firehouse with sellable furniture, or even a new structure.. *crosses fingers*

I transported to Primverness to add the new sign to CFB-HQ. They still had the decor for the Order of the Wounded Rabbit hanging for the militiamen that were injured in the first Martian invasion.

...

Moving right along..

While searching for the lift going down I ran into Naddeh Slade, an inventor who spoke to someone about me, and somehow got the impression that I was Sir Edward's daughter! I corrected him, telling him that was indeed speaking to my father, Dr. Mason.

He asked me if I'd like to buy a new arm. I'm always looking for spare parts, so I negotiated what I thought was a decent price which included the blueprints for modifying it.

I take a predictably abrupt ride in Mr Slade's craft to the ground..

And something..is..missing.

I assume this is temporary. With one firehouse in absentia and another one with new owners I was starting to worry.

WHile I refit the arm to a size and shape compatible with my chassis, Sysperia Poppy contacts me. She say she wants me to pose and be interviewed for her Beautiful People collection. Much of what was discussed was Out of Character, and some even private. She told me things I needed so desperately to hear about myself, my House, and my Deva.

To be involved in the exhibit means highlighting the person behind the avatar..avatars..as the pixels being manipulated. For the sake of Art, and possibly of Healing, I was being invited to disclose facts I keep to my closest friends and family. I have much to ponder.

~Qli

Terror in Tiny Town

2007-08-04T04:33:00.000-07:00

It was nice to see so many avatars in the saloon again. There was lots of a room, especially since they were tinies! The event was sponsored by Mr. 1wuz gray (who being a nocturnal creature at GMT 0 unfortunately could not make it to the event) was there in spirit as I hung his posters around the bar room. Here we see the lovely Miss Lumina in a lovely faekitty form..she says sly foxes follow her all the time even when she's big, too.

People said I had a cute avatar. A little boxy, but surprisingly agile.

Even as a tiny Miss Emilly looks mysterious.

RUN EMILLY RUN!!!

The ladies contest winner, My Little Sim Owner, Miss Kattryn Severine

The mens contest winner, the Pocketer of Polyjuice Potions, the Kuddly Koala Sir Edward Pierce, who pulled his wife Lady Christine out of his hat.

Sir JJ looks very distinguished as a hippogriff! He was hosting a Bookbinder's Ball and was kind enough to put a tiny bug in Duchess Gabrielle's ear to ask everyone to drift over to our event when theirs was finished. I'd take a few hops back if I were you, Lunar!

Sheriff Ortega has an amazing tolerance. Or he was just too busy smurfing as a DJ to smurf the smurf out of that smurf-smurf smurfing smurf!

Is this a tiny or a macro-quantum? Did anyone ever count all his electrons?

Just as we were finishing up, Father's new construction droid ambled in, modulating something about "pest control". We put our humanoid skins back on and left quickly.

~Qli

At the Helm

2007-07-31T05:41:00.000-07:00

Father and my brother Koen have traveled to Sumatra for expedition, and will be unavailable except for special situations by teleport, though they prefer not to be interrupted. Dr. Mason recently came into possession of photographs of Koen's mother, Lucian. Among the collection are images taken by Dr. Jerimiah Mason on his expedition to Sumatra where he encountered the Bloodtail Neko tribe and captured her, as well as some later photos of Lucian in servitude to the Mason household. Darien would have barely been in his teens when the last photo was taken.

Father used these photographs to conduct a séance, which as a Reanimator he has never failed to accomplish with the utmost precision. But in this case her spirit was not recovered. To him, this is proof that Lucian has not yet expended all of her nine lives.

I shall post a few of these pictures..though some are too gruesome to share even in sepia. If by any chance some Caledonian adventurer can identify the stone structures or other geography I will telegraph Dr. Mason immediately so he can narrow his search.

Our eternal thanks to Miss Emilly Orr for discovering these prints.

I am managing the Bloodwing Foundation in Dr. Mason's absence. I am also training my new clockwork sister, Hinako Kohime.

I will be hosting the next Steelhead Ball this Friday as well. I have already found a sponsor, Caledon's small, cute, fuzzy, talented and distinguished Mr. One-Was (1wuz) Gray. I believe a Best in Tiny Avatars event would the most appropriate festivity, which I shall suggest at the Town Meeting tonight at 7:30.

I do hope Dr. Mason will return for the breaking ground of the Hospital, which would occur next week, Guvna providing. I hope you succeed in your quest for you and my brother's sake, Father. I hope she is alive, and I hope she wishes to be found. Do return safely.

~Qli

Thank you all for a lovely Rezday!

2007-07-28T21:35:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry I don't have any pictures, but I was too busy hosting and rebooting..but thank you all for attending, and such lovely gifts! And thanks to Koreshan Point for sponsoring the event! Even if their amusement park is in some need of repairs it is a lovely place to visit..it's one-stop shopping for dollforms like mine if you wish one!

~Qli

Griefers from Outer Space

2007-07-26T05:10:00.000-07:00

The day started wonderfully enough with a transmission from Agent Hassanov. He had taken my idea of modifying steampowered elephants for use as walking fire engines and amplified it to a scale that only he can accomplish. Behlold..the stampowered wooly mammoth..STAMPIUS MAXIMUS!

Even the reserved Miss Kattrynne was overheard to say, "That is something!" Howerver thing quickly took a turn for the worst. Just as Sir JJ and I were introducing ourselves to a new member of our polite society, I heard an engine drone behind me that could not have come from the mammoth. I did not even have to turn my head..the look of terror on the newcomer's face told me everything. The Martians had come to Steelhead.

Oh, that the mammoth were fully operational! It only stood in place as the orbs harried me and its creator. I called for reinforcements from Caledon and gratefully they arrived. The spacecraft seemed to have developed resistance to my ZRD slugthrowers, but likewise I had strengthened my armour to resist their plasma cannons. I did close in enough on one of them to find something unexpected. Humanoid lifesigns..and a familiar one at that. Perhaps it was a glitch.

And of course, Barthelmess arrives on cue after the all-clear is sounded. Don't the Men in Black always arrive after the aliens leave? Hmm..perhaps he is more than he seems.

Sheriff Ortega, I need answers. Exactly HOW did Mr. Barthelmess wipe out your kin? "Exploiting their weaknesses" can mean anything. Silver bullets? Fire? Magic? Griefing clowns?

I don't know about he rest of you, but alien invasions are quickly going the way of werewolf attack.

Perhaps Qli Steele was right. The only answer to keeping the homelands safe are through the application of raw power. The next time you see those floating eyeballs over your sim..

BAN THE BRUTES!

System Repairs Complete

2007-07-25T05:55:00.000-07:00

There still seems to be some trouble with the engine, only one exhaust pipe is working, but that may be a symptom of gridwide troubles. JJ tried to cheer me up for my upcoming rezday by taking me shopping in Victoria City. I steered away from a Dark Victorian dress (Celtic knots aren't really my style) and towards a more austere riding dress from Amusing, with boots by the same maker dress. The boots promptly vanished after the system crash, but she is replacing them with a sit of heels not on her kiosk. Thank you Miss Messmer!

I invited the new Bloodwing to the Foundation so I could speak with her..albeit slowly and tentatively through translation devices. The encounter is described in my recent Bloodwing Foundation post. An addendum..shortly after the encounter she reappeared with a female friend to peruse the art galleries. They were especially interested in Sysperia's works so I referred them to her gallery. Just before she left Madam Sperber called herself my Mother, then kissed me.

I must assume Bloodwing is adjusting well to the new form.

~Qli