Professor Wickentower's Transmissions through the Aether - Part 4

Dear readers and everyone else who visits this blog,

it is a very special pleasure for me to publish a new episode of the Professor's Transmissions through the Aether. Today it is a quite mysterious one, but don't be afraid: you are in good hands here. So get yourself a warm drink, take a seat next to the fire and listen to the Professor's words through your receiving device:

As the winter nights draw in, I am reminded of a tale I once heard, while sheltering from a most tempestuous storm....
During the worst storm to strike the far off lands of Mirrormere, a most isolated region, which is a vast lake surrounded by jagged peaks and pitted with shadow filled valleys, a Dirigible bound for Never drift, found itself caught up in the 'Krakens breath' a term used by the Aethernauts of Old New Gate, meaning a storm strong enough to tear the envelope of an Airship and twist her structure to breaking point. And indeed the Airship was dashed on the rocky spires and all but three souls, were lost on board.
These three, a young couple and their year old daughter, found themselves lost and alone in the bitter encroaching cold, stumbling through the heavy pines rising up from the snow blanketed land and only compounding their dilemma by attempting to follow the frozen river, which ended abruptly at the edge of a precipice. Now cut off from any safe route, the slope to steep to return, all seemed lost...Until a figure emerged from the snowy night and beckoned to them, a lean almost thin figure, swathed in furs and glistening with hoarfrost, his long hair white as the snow which settled on it, and a beard bristling with frost. Without an alternative, the couple followed him, their precious cargo clutched tightly, for arduous hours they allowed themselves to be led by this would be rescuer, who never spoke, not a word, or sound from his lips emerged in that time. Finaly he paused at a mountain track which ran below the snow line, and placing his sack on the floor indicated the route they should follow to the village, which sprawled out below them, welcoming window lights in the gloom and the clattering of carts, more welcome sights and sounds than any, after such a chilly ordeal.
And then, without a word, the old man picked up his sack and climbed back up the mountain, beyond the tree line, up into the snow line and vanished into the clouds shrouding the peak...And was never heard nor seen from again.
The family now safe in the town below recounted the tail of this unspeaking guide and were met with some curious gazes from those gathered in the tavern. You see, in the most far flung and isolated corners of the world, superstition is abroad in all walks of life. The more level headed said it was just a kindly old Hermit, who lived up there high up in the ragged peaks who performed a charitable act. But some whispered of the Revenant of an old mountain guide, who perished above the snow line searching for a lost group of mountaineers, finally fulfilling his last promise to return the lost ones to safety...And some? well, some whispered that this was old Jack Frost himself, who for some reason, took pity on the man, woman and child, and in that moment, decided he would performed one kindly deed, and lead the family to safety...But as I say, there are places in the chilly furrows of the world where superstition is rife, or as some may say, older more intimate knowledge of the half seen world, we sometimes stumble across , as the shadows lengthen and the chill winds blow, in the dead of winter....
What do you think?...

Exert From
 'My further travels across the 35th Dimension and other places'
Prof.Z.Wickentower.

Professor Wickentower's Transmissions through the Aether - Part 3

On an ancient chart, there is a tiny speck marked 'The corner of No and Where' at 360 degrees North of Improbable, 335 degrees West of Impossible...It is named Never Drift...And when it wrenched its self from the land, the waters poured into fill the earthen void...Only the Statue of the Sea king, which stood on the headland remained behind, some would say, he held his place in his realm despite the upheaval...Fishes came through the breach in the land that was, feeding among the Kelp, which has made this place a strong hold now, and the wreck of the once valiant Ironclad which patrolled the waters around the village, dashed to a watery grave, it's stalwart crew lost to the engulfing waters. But some Divers, searching the sea bed for the lost towers, do say they have seen 'other things' in the waters, amongst the kelp...Some even whisper that the Contraptionist, the mad inventor and watcher of the levitating lands, dwelling on one of the periphery islands, has met Mermaids and Mermen, down in the deeps!...Conversed with them, and made them welcome...Perhaps he may have...He is a curious creature and no mistake!...So should you come to Never Drift, the lands at the edge of improbability, perhaps you catch a glint in the waters? Just a fish?, perhaps, but perhaps that glimmer is the tail of a Mermaid, come to pay respects to the image of the lost 'king of the waters' or lay a wreath on the hull of the lost Nautilus, and the champion of the waters and of peace?... But maybe it is just a fish and Mermaids are like dreams...Just a passing memory...But in that case why do so many people will believe in them then?....What do you think?

Exert from "My travels in the 35th Dimension and other places" 

By Prof.Z.Wickentower.

Click for a journey to Never Drift

Professor Wickentower's Transmissions through the Aether - Part 2

After the positive reception of the first post of our new series, I am glad to present you his second transmission today. Enjoy!

The Professor transmitting his transmissions!

Beware, beware,
Be careful where you tread, 
Be careful what you do,
'cause Mumbo-Jumbo 'gonna Hoo-do you.
I heard a Soldier say that once, Soldiers know death is watching and waiting, but they do not fear death, they are just watchful of him. The Soldier was quite right of course. One should be careful where you walk, be careful where you tread. You see there are some places you should not walk, and the less adventurous, or more sensible if you ask me! Will not tread. Be warned, some places, do not like visitors, some places are very old, and sometimes there are very old things which still dwell there. and they do not like you treading in their streets.

In a ancient rotting Seaport, cloaked in mist and shrouded in rumor, it is not just death that watches, things older than death lurk just beyond your lamplight, half seen out of the corner of your eye, only to vanish when you turn to look. A creak on the Hotel stairs, is just an old building settling, isn't it? Because, you know no one is there on the stairs, just beyond the door, which you keep locked because, well...you just do...Or, is it, in the back of your mind, really a barrier? Between you, and the other side of madness?.

The residents, or as one might like to call them 'denizens' watch you, unblinking from half shuttered windows, as you wander along over grown pavements flanked by crumbling houses, once fine and even austere, now draped in ivy, unkempt and unclean.
The shoreline flows into the salt marshes, vast, mist shrouded and empty...But are they empty? Of course they are! That is just mist, and not tendrils from a half formed bulk of some 'thing' which perhaps, is best left alone...

Water flows into half covered sewer grates, twisting out across the port town like veins under a corrupt skin.
And here, you really should not wander, and if you do, when the lamp light flickers and the shadows dance, and the half hidden openings in the walls, yawn wide into the proverbial blackness, you really must be careful where you tread, be careful what you do, because something more foreboding than Mumbo-Jumbo is going to do much worse, than Hoo-do you!..
But...
Those places are far away, far from the nice normal safe streets of your home town, and one would never ever think of visiting them, but ...Would one?

Exert From
 'My further travels across the 35th Dimension and other places'
Prof.Z.Wickentower.

[here the writer tips his hat to the Innsmouth Sim and it's creators]

Professor Wickentower's Transmissions through the Aether

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.