On one of my many journeys through the steampunky realms of Second Life, I met a person who would become very quickly a dear friend of mine. Professor Zen Wickentower. Regular readers may be familiar with this name. We did collaborate on several projects before.
Today, I introduce you to the narrative side of him. We were talking about him having a more or less regular series about his travels and the adventures he had. So here is the first part of "Professor Wickentower's Transmissions through the Aether". I hope you enjoy them!
Once, a few Tinkerers would have it, even before the rise of the Steampunks way back in the History of the JunkPunks of Old Shoregate, there were the Clockpunks. they had other names of course, Cogpunks, was another, and they lived isolated beyond the Black-Coal shores beyond the turbulent Aether streams, beyond the Grey-cloud reefs, in the brass walled Clanking City.
Clock workers, labored in their factories, sprung wound conveyances trundled along the copper paved streets and their clock work Dirigibles glided above the brazen roofs and pinnacles.
But that was a long time ago.
A very few claim to have seen one of these clockwork artificers and most think they are a myth...But...
Recently, a Mad Tinkerer, built the first, for a long time anyway, Clockwork Dirigible. Maybe he found a wreck, off the Cavorite crags? Or the worn and tattered schematics left by the original maker in an ancient, dust cocooned draw? Who knows?... Now these Clockwork Aetherboats are being spotted again, drifting almost silently through the clouds, their arrival heralded by the slow ticking and clicking of the clockwork mechanism.
Of the Clockpunks themselves? Little remains to show they were even here, some twisting spires of brass and cobweb shrouded clockwork are sometimes sighted on the distant horizon, before they are engulfed in stormcloud, or a curio, from their homes might turn up, at a merchants store, sold by a salvage man, tight lipped as to how he came by it of course!
But...some Aeronauts, say, in the quite hours of the, late watches, and if the static is very very low, if you listen very carefully to transmissions on the Aetherscope, you can almost hear the faint clicking of gears. Most say that it is just the engines of the Airship, echoing through the hull but some say that this is the sound of the Clanking city, out there, beyond the Black Coal shores, beyond the grey cloud reefs, where the air Kraken prowl and the Night Gaunts lurk....What do you think?
Exert from "My travels in the 35th Dimension and other places"
By Prof.Z.Wickentower.
