Five Banners Staged
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Digging through your desk angrily, you slammed a sheaf of papers down on it. Your little adventure had dug up more than a few discrepancies, and the near-skeletal manning made it so that if someone could find a way to skive off for a few drinks, nobody would catch them before they were dangerously sloshed.
"Alek…. viens au lit…" you heard from behind you, a sleepy voice trying to coo at you. "Elizabeth n'est pas encore de retour…"
"I'm busy." You groused in return, throwing the drawers shut after finding the documents you needed. Every airshipman of rate needed to be contracted, and the devil was quite literally in the details. As such, when you- or more likely Lucia and Donald- found the thief, you wanted an airtight case to get them removed as fast as possible. Codes of conduct, severance clauses, and benefits pay all swirled through your mind in a whirling circle, until a hand passed over your shoulder. Looking up, you saw Ayse peering down at you, bedhead making her halfhearted glare more adorable. Trying to focus on your work, you pushed against the stuffy legalese, only to have a delicate hand lay it back on the desk, before pulling your chair out to lean against you.
"You need to calm down, Aleksander." Ayse murmered, smiling. "This will keep for morning."
"I didn't see you almost slicing your face open on a broken bottle today." You griped back.
"Well no, not really. Still, though."
"Can't sleep alone?" you asked, trying to make a joke. The stiffness from behind you answered the question a fair bit more than you intended.
"It isn't pleasant, no." Ayse muttered, grabbing my shoulder. "Brings back bad memories."
"Welcome to the club." You said, letting the papers fall to the desk. Somehow, it seemed less important now. Amazing what a spark of empathy could do.
"Something tells me yours and mine share some things in common." Ayse replied, leaning in on you carefully.
"After my father disappeared, money was tight. I was running goods out of Detroit, sometimes north or south when I had the time. I had no money, no future, but one friend and a lighter. It was just Lucia and myself, until things went south. I never should have taken a job with the Purple Gang, but the money was too good. I got back to school, Lucia's family got out of hock… but I've had to watch my back for a while now. The Zerellis, they didn't exactly like me after that."
"It's why you learned to fight?"
"Started with saps in the alleys, and I can use a blackjack well enough. Pistol and sabre, I picked that up in school when I needed to make a point. They wanted back from loosing their money to my cards, and they got satisfaction in the ring."
Ayse nodded, before carefully taking your hands away from your work. "I've been in a few rough spots, myself. My father drew attention, and there are groups in the Empire that aren't above using it. We were in Trebizond, and the Armenians were up in arms over something, I don't know what. They're Armenians, they're always angry about something. A group broke into the house, though, some dozen of them, and held us hostage."
Your eyes shot up. "I can only presume the ending was satisfactory."
"An exchange of prisoners was what they wanted. Some two dozen of their terrorist friends, in exchange for me and my family. It went quickly enough, at least, and fortunately for you warmed my father to the concept of the Navy Aeronautique."
"Oh?"
"The local captain, he volunteered his cutter for a punitive strike after. They leveled their camp, and he got promoted. Shame he died in an accident that year, though."
Shrugging, you stopped pretending to work and just stood up. Taking a minute to roll your shoulders, you headed back to your bedroom, weighing your options. Ayse had been teasing you a little, and as she stood there in her rather sheer nightclothes you were of two minds on how to spend the night. On the right, you did need to get to sleep so when you got ashore tomorrow you could get everything done in a timely fashion. On the left, you still had a few ounces of energy left from your fury, and you knew if you left it unspent it would make the morning unpleasant.
That's about when Ayse bit her lip and cocked her hips, letting a peak of dusky skin out from under the sheer linen. Sweeping the Turkish beauty up in your arms, she squeaked slightly as one of your hands wrapped around her shapely backside.
"I'll admit, I didn't expect-" she tried to say as you kissed her deeply. Chuckling as she took a second to pant, you grinned.
"I still owe you for Istanbul."
Ayse giggled, and kissed me back. "The sooner the better."
---
Waking up in the morning was a bit of a struggle, trying to push through the fog after a long night of exhaustion and exercise. After fishing your way out of the snarl of covers, you looked yourself over carefully. Coated in sweat and other fluids unmentionable, back scratched into sausage guts, a slight bruise on your cheekbone from when Ayse thought coming down to meet you as you were coming up was a good plan, you needed to clean up. Fortunately, you had a bathrobe and a bath one deck up and four doors down. Wrapping up swiftly, you skeedadled up to the bath, taking a quick moment to shower off before sighing happily as you settled into the bath.
"I know you own the place, Alek, but you really need to pay attention to the sign." Czeslawa said from across the pool, smirking as what little of her head you could see above the water tried to blend in with the steam and fog. "Although, since I am the doctor, what exactly happened to your back?"
Aw, fuck.
VOTES
Response?
[] "Fell on the grating in my nightshirt" (Lie like a rug)
[] "There was, an, um... I might have..."
[] Disregard shitty QM choices, write-in
AN: THIS WAS NOT DELAYED BY FINALS AT ALL NO SIREE
NothingNow
Corpse Wrangler
- Location
- Tampa
Dirtnap
Kanmusu Affecionado
[X] Gather what scraps of dignity you have left and decline to comment.
- Location
- Sydney australia
[X] I plead the fifth.
Honestly though if my above answer is not doable then this instead.
[X] "Fell on the grating in my nightshirt" (Lie like a rug).
Honestly though if my above answer is not doable then this instead.
[X] "Fell on the grating in my nightshirt" (Lie like a rug).
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
"This isn't... ok, this is what it looks like."[X] "There was, an, um... I might have..."
[X] Disregard shitty QM choices, write-in -
-[X] "I spent the night with someone who needed to not be alone, and vice versa. I spilled blood in Istanbul for Elizabeth. I'd do the same for you, or Elizabeth, or... you're all important to me. You're not just crew, if that makes sense."
Dirtnap
Kanmusu Affecionado
[X] "There was, an, um... I might have..."
[X] Disregard shitty QM choices, write-in -
-[X] "I spent the night with someone who needed to not be alone, and vice versa. I spilled blood in Istanbul for Elizabeth. I'd do the same for you, or Elizabeth, or... you're all important to me. You're not just crew, if that makes sense."
much better, it keeps the spaget while also being somewhat noble!
[X] Disregard shitty QM choices, write-in -
-[X] "I spent the night with someone who needed to not be alone, and vice versa. I spilled blood in Istanbul for Elizabeth. I'd do the same for you, or Elizabeth, or... you're all important to me. You're not just crew, if that makes sense."
much better, it keeps the spaget while also being somewhat noble!
B-baka!
Frustrated Art
- Location
- Some town in the Philippines
[X] "There was, an, um... I might have..."
[X] Disregard shitty QM choices, write-in -
-[X] "I spent the night with someone who needed to not be alone, and vice versa. I spilled blood in Istanbul for Elizabeth. I'd do the same for you, or Elizabeth, or... you're all important to me. You're not just crew, if that makes sense."
[X] Disregard shitty QM choices, write-in -
-[X] "I spent the night with someone who needed to not be alone, and vice versa. I spilled blood in Istanbul for Elizabeth. I'd do the same for you, or Elizabeth, or... you're all important to me. You're not just crew, if that makes sense."
Cmd. Frost
The last one standing.
- Location
- The Summer Stretch
X] "There was, an, um... I might have..."
[X] Disregard shitty QM choices, write-in -
-[X] "I spent the night with someone who needed to not be alone, and vice versa. I spilled blood in Istanbul for Elizabeth. I'd do the same for you, or Elizabeth, or... you're all important to me. You're not just crew, if that makes sense."
[X] Disregard shitty QM choices, write-in -
-[X] "I spent the night with someone who needed to not be alone, and vice versa. I spilled blood in Istanbul for Elizabeth. I'd do the same for you, or Elizabeth, or... you're all important to me. You're not just crew, if that makes sense."
- Location
- America
[X] "There was, an, um... I might have..."
[X] Disregard shitty QM choices, write-in -
-[X] "I spent the night with someone who needed to not be alone, and vice versa. I spilled blood in Istanbul for Elizabeth. I'd do the same for you, or Elizabeth, or... you're all important to me. You're not just crew, if that makes sense."
[X] Disregard shitty QM choices, write-in -
-[X] "I spent the night with someone who needed to not be alone, and vice versa. I spilled blood in Istanbul for Elizabeth. I'd do the same for you, or Elizabeth, or... you're all important to me. You're not just crew, if that makes sense."
Hey guys, we're a book now!
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
https://www.amazon.com/Century-Turn...8&qid=1543981318&sr=8-1&keywords=tabac+iberez
Well guys, it's been grand, but I'm happy and sad to say this quest is done. It's a book now! Soon to be several books, really, and you should all go buy them! And to make it up to you guys, I'm even going to post the prologue as bait!
The far polar regions of the world were always speckled in mystery and wonder. From the days of longship and Viking to the search for the rumored Northern Passage, the lands of ice and snow drew many for riches, fame, and glory. It was Hudson who first found anything of real note, when his ships nearly foundered in the Labrador Sea as titanic icebergs began their southward travel for the year. His logs reports of the icebergs seeming to shrink in the water as they went further north was dismissed as exaggeration for years, until the Danes started to seriously colonize Greenland. The irony of the naming aside, Hans Egede noted that the further south drifting ice went, the higher it climbed, as if lightened or lifted skyward by some force. In his years there leading the colonization, exploration, and conversion of the natives, he continually noted this phenomena was based on latitude and season.
By this point, the scientific community of Europe was alight with curiosity. The Dutch were finally able to crack the secret, with the brave Ijsship and her crew docking and boarding an iceberg, finding the secret in a crevice at the top. As meltwater poured forth into a pool carved into the top of the iceberg, it rotated ice flows in concentric circles, which by some means produced a lifting force on the iceberg. This knowledge would be kept suppressed, however, as the Thirty Year's War raged across Europa, and not be brought forth again for a hundred years.
As conflict and war smoldered across Europe, research muddled along with the now-decrepit knowledge that an artificial lift and rebellion from Aristotle's view of the natural place and physics existed. In the echoing wake of the wars from the Austrian succession, philosophy and scientists both toiled away at the conundrum that was presented, yet no solid discoveries or evidence was made. More expeditions were taken, and the latest devices known to the hands of man were brought to the task. Forged iron and steel, blasting powder and pick, and the fruits of every alchemist who could travel north. The search for flight seemed as fruitful as the development of the philosopher's stone, but hope remained.
It was in the light before the shadow of le Révolution that the first steps in flight were taken- without the aid of this natural philosophy. Hot air and hydrogen paved the way for life to take to the sky, with the names of Montgolfiers, Robert Brothers, and Charles engraved into the history of the art. The race to develop more advanced ways of claiming the skies flew ever onward, pushing themselves mercilessly. The English Channel was the first significant navigational obstacle to fall before the balloon, earning Jean-Pierre Blanchard his place in history for the first time. His second would be less fortunate.
It was on his historic flight in the Americas in 1793 that Blanchard both became the first man to confirmidly discover the Aether, and shortly thereafter the first man to have been killed by it. Launching from the yard in a Philadelphia jail, his expected point of landing was to have been Deptford, New Jersey. On his terminal approach, however, he was caught by a strange crossbreeze thought to be caused by mysterious effects of altitude, and pulled into what some described as a glittering hole in the sky. While this might have been initially dismissed as an airborne accident without survivors, of which there were still frightfully many, witnesses such as the President of the United States and the majority of his cabinet put paid to that story.
As aviation progressed and the skies found dirigibles and airships treading their cloudy paths, exploration into the cause of Blanchard's death continued. Traversing the mysterious Aether was dangerous and fraught with death, but the promise of prizes from a dozen and more countries drove explorers and adventurers for years. It was in 1826 that a return was finally recorded, with the Russian aeronaut Vladmir Troyechka launching from Saint-Petersburg and landing in a field outside Moscow several hours later. According to the budding man, the secret was to rely on cloth fabric, not the hands of machines, to propel an airship. Emboldened, dirigible pilots across the world started work to chart the mysterious paths of the sky, often selling their services as couriers and rush deliverymen.
The fires of conflict had only dimmed, however, and command of the air was still seen as a valuable resource. Artillery became the first to send men up in uniform, with their balloon-based spotters ensuring accurate fire and scouting movement of the enemy. While their achievements were many and daring, this is not a story of war- but one war did catalise the persecutor to modern flight. In the American Civil War, a young German engineering officer by the name of Ferdinand von Zeppelin, sent as an observer and advisor, was taken on a balloon flight above the Peninsular Campaign. From then on, he was infected with the aviation bug- he had to fly. On returning to Germany and hearing the news of the French developing a fully independent dirigible, von Zeppelin was incensed. While working with the VDI to develop a design in 1865, he ran across a young natural philosopher by the name of Nathaniel Hawkins, therin changing the course of history forever.
Hawkins, a student of natural sciences in Leipzig and engineering in the polytechnic of Wurttemberg, had been entranced by the by-now almost mythological properties inherent in the ice flows on glaciers, and had come to a radical new conclusion. While composition, rotation, and even temperature had been slavishly copied since time immortal to no effect, Hawkins had a revolutionary new hypothesis. Rather than producing lift as had been long theorized, Hawkins believed the system increased buoyancy by some means- after all, should they produce lift, would not at some point the icebergs start flying once they were light enough?
To test his theory, however, Hawkins needed a platform that could both produce lift and rotational power, and the only group producing a platform powerful enough was Zeppelin. After taking a design from the French balloonist Giffard for a design that could mount a steam engine, the now-firm duo was set to work. To measure the effectiveness of the device, an ascencion test was planned- a full balloon under full ballast load, first with the device keyed off to establish a baseline, and then again with the device connected. The first test was unimpressive, the LZ-2 lifting itself to the end of it's hundred-meter tether in twenty minutes.
With the device activated, it repeated the trip in three.
Together, Hawkins and Zeppelin were sitting on a gold mine. With the ability to increase the power of the engine, the power of the device were found to be based on the movement of the driving disk, by changing speed or the diameter of the disc in the system. With progress in excess of the wildest dreams of the VDI and other backers, von Zeppelin made ready a series of new craft, the LZ-4, -5, and -6, and prepared his budding fleet for the next world's faire in Paris,, scheduled for the October of 1867.
When he arrived, von Zeppelin took the Faire by storm. With three ships hauling all matter of German finery, the airborne caravan quickly stole the spotlight away from the French and English attendees. While the focus of the exhibition may have originally been for art, the flying machines took away the breath of all the attendees. From novelists, to painters and sculptors, mechanics and masons, and even according to hearsay the disguised Emperor Napoleon III himself, Zeppelin and Hawkins brought everyone up to the beauty of the skies.
For all the joy their art had brought, however, Fate demanded a toll. In the dark of the night in the middle of the exhibition, Hawkin's craft was seized by a sudden summer squall and dragged out beyond the peripheries of Paris. Great effort and weeks were spent searching for it, when the passengers were recovered a week latter outside of Marseilles. The ship had been ripped into the Aether, and with consummate skill Hawthorn had used his own parachute as a makeshift sail to pull the open-hulled craft away from the brutal stormwinds. While his own means of safety was destroyed in this endeavour, Hawthorn managed an aetheric exit two days later, losing lift all the while. Once ground was sighted, the women and children were evacuated first, the gentlemen of the ship binding themselves tightly together to share parachutes while Hawthorne attempted to land. Here, his luck was spent, as the crash landing snapped his spine when the gondola collapsed.
With Hawkins given a hero's memorial, von Zeppelin himself returned to Germany, determined to bring mankind to the skies. In the years following, he succeeded.
Well guys, it's been grand, but I'm happy and sad to say this quest is done. It's a book now! Soon to be several books, really, and you should all go buy them! And to make it up to you guys, I'm even going to post the prologue as bait!
The far polar regions of the world were always speckled in mystery and wonder. From the days of longship and Viking to the search for the rumored Northern Passage, the lands of ice and snow drew many for riches, fame, and glory. It was Hudson who first found anything of real note, when his ships nearly foundered in the Labrador Sea as titanic icebergs began their southward travel for the year. His logs reports of the icebergs seeming to shrink in the water as they went further north was dismissed as exaggeration for years, until the Danes started to seriously colonize Greenland. The irony of the naming aside, Hans Egede noted that the further south drifting ice went, the higher it climbed, as if lightened or lifted skyward by some force. In his years there leading the colonization, exploration, and conversion of the natives, he continually noted this phenomena was based on latitude and season.
By this point, the scientific community of Europe was alight with curiosity. The Dutch were finally able to crack the secret, with the brave Ijsship and her crew docking and boarding an iceberg, finding the secret in a crevice at the top. As meltwater poured forth into a pool carved into the top of the iceberg, it rotated ice flows in concentric circles, which by some means produced a lifting force on the iceberg. This knowledge would be kept suppressed, however, as the Thirty Year's War raged across Europa, and not be brought forth again for a hundred years.
As conflict and war smoldered across Europe, research muddled along with the now-decrepit knowledge that an artificial lift and rebellion from Aristotle's view of the natural place and physics existed. In the echoing wake of the wars from the Austrian succession, philosophy and scientists both toiled away at the conundrum that was presented, yet no solid discoveries or evidence was made. More expeditions were taken, and the latest devices known to the hands of man were brought to the task. Forged iron and steel, blasting powder and pick, and the fruits of every alchemist who could travel north. The search for flight seemed as fruitful as the development of the philosopher's stone, but hope remained.
It was in the light before the shadow of le Révolution that the first steps in flight were taken- without the aid of this natural philosophy. Hot air and hydrogen paved the way for life to take to the sky, with the names of Montgolfiers, Robert Brothers, and Charles engraved into the history of the art. The race to develop more advanced ways of claiming the skies flew ever onward, pushing themselves mercilessly. The English Channel was the first significant navigational obstacle to fall before the balloon, earning Jean-Pierre Blanchard his place in history for the first time. His second would be less fortunate.
It was on his historic flight in the Americas in 1793 that Blanchard both became the first man to confirmidly discover the Aether, and shortly thereafter the first man to have been killed by it. Launching from the yard in a Philadelphia jail, his expected point of landing was to have been Deptford, New Jersey. On his terminal approach, however, he was caught by a strange crossbreeze thought to be caused by mysterious effects of altitude, and pulled into what some described as a glittering hole in the sky. While this might have been initially dismissed as an airborne accident without survivors, of which there were still frightfully many, witnesses such as the President of the United States and the majority of his cabinet put paid to that story.
As aviation progressed and the skies found dirigibles and airships treading their cloudy paths, exploration into the cause of Blanchard's death continued. Traversing the mysterious Aether was dangerous and fraught with death, but the promise of prizes from a dozen and more countries drove explorers and adventurers for years. It was in 1826 that a return was finally recorded, with the Russian aeronaut Vladmir Troyechka launching from Saint-Petersburg and landing in a field outside Moscow several hours later. According to the budding man, the secret was to rely on cloth fabric, not the hands of machines, to propel an airship. Emboldened, dirigible pilots across the world started work to chart the mysterious paths of the sky, often selling their services as couriers and rush deliverymen.
The fires of conflict had only dimmed, however, and command of the air was still seen as a valuable resource. Artillery became the first to send men up in uniform, with their balloon-based spotters ensuring accurate fire and scouting movement of the enemy. While their achievements were many and daring, this is not a story of war- but one war did catalise the persecutor to modern flight. In the American Civil War, a young German engineering officer by the name of Ferdinand von Zeppelin, sent as an observer and advisor, was taken on a balloon flight above the Peninsular Campaign. From then on, he was infected with the aviation bug- he had to fly. On returning to Germany and hearing the news of the French developing a fully independent dirigible, von Zeppelin was incensed. While working with the VDI to develop a design in 1865, he ran across a young natural philosopher by the name of Nathaniel Hawkins, therin changing the course of history forever.
Hawkins, a student of natural sciences in Leipzig and engineering in the polytechnic of Wurttemberg, had been entranced by the by-now almost mythological properties inherent in the ice flows on glaciers, and had come to a radical new conclusion. While composition, rotation, and even temperature had been slavishly copied since time immortal to no effect, Hawkins had a revolutionary new hypothesis. Rather than producing lift as had been long theorized, Hawkins believed the system increased buoyancy by some means- after all, should they produce lift, would not at some point the icebergs start flying once they were light enough?
To test his theory, however, Hawkins needed a platform that could both produce lift and rotational power, and the only group producing a platform powerful enough was Zeppelin. After taking a design from the French balloonist Giffard for a design that could mount a steam engine, the now-firm duo was set to work. To measure the effectiveness of the device, an ascencion test was planned- a full balloon under full ballast load, first with the device keyed off to establish a baseline, and then again with the device connected. The first test was unimpressive, the LZ-2 lifting itself to the end of it's hundred-meter tether in twenty minutes.
With the device activated, it repeated the trip in three.
Together, Hawkins and Zeppelin were sitting on a gold mine. With the ability to increase the power of the engine, the power of the device were found to be based on the movement of the driving disk, by changing speed or the diameter of the disc in the system. With progress in excess of the wildest dreams of the VDI and other backers, von Zeppelin made ready a series of new craft, the LZ-4, -5, and -6, and prepared his budding fleet for the next world's faire in Paris,, scheduled for the October of 1867.
When he arrived, von Zeppelin took the Faire by storm. With three ships hauling all matter of German finery, the airborne caravan quickly stole the spotlight away from the French and English attendees. While the focus of the exhibition may have originally been for art, the flying machines took away the breath of all the attendees. From novelists, to painters and sculptors, mechanics and masons, and even according to hearsay the disguised Emperor Napoleon III himself, Zeppelin and Hawkins brought everyone up to the beauty of the skies.
For all the joy their art had brought, however, Fate demanded a toll. In the dark of the night in the middle of the exhibition, Hawkin's craft was seized by a sudden summer squall and dragged out beyond the peripheries of Paris. Great effort and weeks were spent searching for it, when the passengers were recovered a week latter outside of Marseilles. The ship had been ripped into the Aether, and with consummate skill Hawthorn had used his own parachute as a makeshift sail to pull the open-hulled craft away from the brutal stormwinds. While his own means of safety was destroyed in this endeavour, Hawthorn managed an aetheric exit two days later, losing lift all the while. Once ground was sighted, the women and children were evacuated first, the gentlemen of the ship binding themselves tightly together to share parachutes while Hawthorne attempted to land. Here, his luck was spent, as the crash landing snapped his spine when the gondola collapsed.
With Hawkins given a hero's memorial, von Zeppelin himself returned to Germany, determined to bring mankind to the skies. In the years following, he succeeded.
Excerpt from God's Own Madmen: A History of Aviationists, by M. Williamson
Spectral Waltz
Scatterbrained Writer
- Location
- Walking the Endless Corridors
Holy shit. Congrats!
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
Looks like I better get cracking on that story idea I had: What happened to one of the other 2 ships we didn't buy at the opening. They headed the other way around the world, and would have crossed paths with Alek and gang somewhere near India.
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
I'm not all of the way done with Book Two yet, much less Book There. You've got time to get to work, and putting it in a short story collection attached to Zeppelins would work quite well.