High Upon the Aether

Captain Robert Spaulding strode confidently into the clerk's office and very nearly collided into a man with a tank on his back and a reddish-brown beard. The port was certainly busy today. Spaulding was 4th in line, although it appeared as though the thick young man at the front of the line was just concluding his business. Another young man stood behind him, sporting spectacles, scarf, and an especially pale complexion. The man immediately in front of Spaulding, with the tank on his back, looked older then the other two, with a wild head of hair that matched his beard. Captain Spaulding had been alone on his ship since he had left Southampton, and seeing all of these people suddenly made him excited and anxious all at once. He muttered to no one in particular, "Mm, nice weather, yeah?"
 
"Be sure to return and check out before leaving port, in case any further charges are accrued. Enjoy your stay upon the Aether, sir," the clerk answered in response, stamping the ship as paid and depositing the money into the drawer. "Next please. Ship name, length of stay and reason for docking today," he called, not looking up from where he jotted down the time for the next entry.

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Arthur looked at the five pound note, a bit confused. He shrugged and folded it into his pocket before beginning to look over Screwjack with curiosity. He went over to the newly repaired call box and pressed a button on the back, which brought another bot zipping along the tracks to his location, carrying his doctor's bag of tools and notebooks. He dug out his ink pot, metal feather quill and notebook, beginning to assess the damage to the ship and the pier before the ship was moved to its new dock.

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Captain Kavenaugh sighed and shook his head as the pair made their exit. He noticed the ships coming into the dock and called out a couple of bots to bring out a few more tables and to wipe down the booths as he prepared for a rush soon. The morning was getting on, anyway, and it would be the lunch hour before long.
 
He regarded the line curiously before realizing he'd been talking out loud, "awkward" he muttered and stood in line quietly, a younger fellow was just finishing his business and there was still someone in front of him. "The appetite will have to wait eh?" he exclaimed to a chair nearby. Rocking back and forth on his feet, the shuffling of someone stopping close behind him gave cause enough to swing a glance backwards "Ah! Hello" He paused taking in the mans faded naval uniform as he swiveled around and extended a hand. "Indeed fine weather today, much better than that blasted hurricane off the coast of the outlands" he paused and introduced himself.

"Guardian of Paradise is my ship he pointed out the window at the lame duck still listing to the side awkwardly. "She's the love of my life and huge bitch when she's cranky". He stared out the window nostalgically. "Name's Sortaec, Holed up here for 30 days for repairs. What brings you here, if that is... you are inclined to divulge such information?" His last question was followed yet again by another example of his ill luck of late, with a creaking whine of metal giving way from metal; the last engine that blew up fell off the ship and disappeared beneath the clouds. "Son of a Whore" he cursed.
 
Moments after departing from his ship, Uunia thought it would be best to go ahead and check his vessel in before anything else, he wanting to promply get on with his usual stay of drinking, gathering members to his ever growing arms cartel and meeting up with a woman of the evening or two. He walked up to the other man, oddly named the same as his butler and the short fellow who would normally ramble himself to oblivion and back, "Well if it isn't my good pal Arthur, the mighty miniature mechanic I know and love." he said sounding slightly happy as he spread his arms wide as if to greet him warmly, "I'm so glad to see a friendly face once again on this dreary little harbor town once more, especially in these times of a fluctuating market." He said as his butler pulled up the rear with all the proper papers that ha had to give in order to dock. "I do hope I haven't come at a bad time, I'm usually good about these things-" he started as he heard a loud bang come from one of the engines of a near by ship, the same ship that he had heard an loud bang from his home not too long ago. "Hmm...well that explains a lot..." he said as a side note before continuing, "But like I said, I'm usually good about these things...save when I had that run in with that would be pirate, to which I am still dreadfully sorry for the whole mess my crew had caused. I do hope the money I gave paid for all the repairs and what not..." he said as he bent down to offer the small engineer a handshake. His butler rolled his eyes, knowing this was just another ploy to which to receive better service. "But on this little stay, I don't really know just how long I might stay this time, you know how some business goes, could be a day, could be months, but I'm prepared to pay ahead just in case. And as for my business...well...I won't bore you with the usual dribble, lets just say I'm here on a recruitment drive...and I'd love a little info on the coming and going of a few of the transients" he said with a sly smile.
 
Sitting in his little shop in the harbour Greg frowned. His robot had decided to break down on him, for only the third time tis week. He sat there with a set of small tools screwing and wrenching away at the piece of junk to make it work again. He had been at it for twenty minutes now, to no avail. "Stupid piece of metallic junk! I never should have put you together in the first place." He kicked it accross the room where its head smacked against a shelf and suddenly came to life. "Ow sir! Was it really neccessary to kick me?" The robot shook itself a moment and wheeled back over to him. "Yes it was neccessary. I've spent the last half hour sweating over you and your stupid bolts I got tired of it. WOuld have junked you too if that kick hadn't worked." He stood and walked to the back of the shop where he went back to his previous project. He was attempting to create a type of wing for the airships which would allow a faster and more reliable way to turn the ship swiftly in mid air. So far his little models had all failed. Each one had either spun out of control or simply dropped out of the air like rocks. However, he refused to give up on his little quest, he never gave up easily. It was good and it was bad at the same time. It meant he rarely ever didn't finish his projects, but also meant he didn't actually get to many of them. "Sir, you have been working on that wing prototype for a week now. Isn't it about time you gave it up and moved on?" A sudden screwdriver went flying towards the small robot. "Kai, how many tiems do I have to tell you not to interupt my experiments?" The robot, Kai which was short for Malachi, seemed to mumble something and wheeled back to the front of the shop and continued to grumble about scrap yards and useless.
 
Truthfully, watching the last of the ship's engines fall into the cloudy abyss cheered Captain Spaulding. It gave him hope that maybe his case wasn't the MOST hopeless. HIS ship still had all of it's engines, after all! He felt it would be more than slightly off-putting to this Sortaec fellow if he were to rejoice over the deterioration of the man's ship, so he kept on a face of disconcertion as he stared out the window at the wreck of a ship before turning back to this new acquaintance and taking his hand in his and shaking.

"Well, Sortaec, sad to say it looks like you'll need that 30 days, with your ship in that condition, aheh... I'm Robert Spaulding, Captain of the Titanic, pleasure to meet you. I'm in between jobs right now, so I thought I would spend some time here in the Aether and find out what's about, yeah? Got any news worth sharing?"
 
Such a boring travel it was.. Nothing had gone on the ship that encouraged her to stay awake for most of the trip if not all though some did complain about how she wasn't working with the rest of the crew. Jayde didn't mind it, she was used to it. The only interesting thing that happened was the fact that she was able to beat up one of the crew members simply because he underestimated her and mistook her blindness for a weakness. Other than that, all was quiet and well.

It was only a day or two from then that they reached the harbor, she can hear the crew men wailing about and yelling about pulling up the sail and lowering the ramp. Everyone was getting ready to dock and so was she. With her hood lowered, she slung her bag over her shoulder and picked up her wooden staff that was only a little taller than she was. Strong wood it was, good to help her move about and to whack someone on the head with it. Stick and bag in hand, she began her descend on the ramp and walk down the peer into town. She couldn't help but stand there for a moment, taking in the busy sounds of the little city along with the different types of smells and scents.

To get around, she allowed her nose to help guide her but it can only help her with so much and she would rather be caught dead then ask for directions or help. She might as well wait around until she caught word of a few gentleman heading to the local pub for drinks. Followed them is what she did and ended up at the pub with little to injuries. Glancing about, she didn't mind anyone and used her stick to get about until she stopped at what seemed to be and what she hoped to be a decent table and had then taken a seat. First to get acquainted with her surroundings than anything.
 
The mechanics bay was awash with the sounds of heavy industry, steam boilers bubbled and crackled, pipes rattled in their clamps, hammers rang out as they slammed into hot steel and welding torches and rivet guns made frequent ringing crashes andother white noise that was music to the tradesmen, supervisors and mechanical artisans that spent days and nights sequestered in the large manufactory deck.

An opressive heat caused men to drip with sweat but they labored on under the watchful eyes of Caine Jericus, Adept-Commander of both the maintenance crews and the repair dirigible Mecanicum, under whose gaze they had labored for many years, and they knew better than to divert from their tasks when they Adept-Commander strode down the steps into their repair bay, his armored boots clanking as they hit the steel decking.

He strode past work crews fabricating weapons and armor that would when finished be sent up to the trade deck for sale, past repair crews laboring on a new generation of steam bot and into his personal workshop, whereupon he looked down at his latest creation, a small pile of brass shells with led shot protruding fe the tip, which he planned to create a weapon with which the firing of such shells would both eject the spent shell casing and load the next shot, but that weapon was a few years off yet, the Tech-Artisan needing to find a way to fire the shells without use of a flint or striker.
 
(ooc: i have not had internet or a week, I am sorry.)


William exited quietly. Taking a deep breath, Hope took the first steps of his new home. He looked around for a minute, trying to take in his surroundings. His pouch his started to suddenly get heavy. Hope had then sat down to take inventory again. Rubbing his glasses he looked through his things.

"Pencil........keyboard......money....locket.....paper....." he slowly whispered. Will's focus was entirely on his things. If he had been walking, he for sure would have run tinto someone.
 
"Captain Spaulding it is then! of the..." he paused as he looked out the window at the Titanic, looking much better for wear than his ship did. "Not particularly titanic in size" he mused to himself. "Gorgeous ship! in much better condition than mine I must say" he paused again and reflected on his words, "Which I just said... soo yeah." He continued rocking back and forth on his heels, "News?, well to be completely honest... i've been away from the civilized world for so long that I've really no clue!" He scratched his chin ponderously.

"There are always the pirates, skirting the councils law beyond the borders, but that's nothing really new, most of my experiences involve screwy steam bots and thunderstorms and the er... always legitmate cargo i'm hauling, how about yourself?"
 
"Stupid hunk of metal. Knew I shouldn't taken that stupid speakerbox as payment. Now look what its got me into." Greg mumbled to himself as he set his project down and sighed. Staring at the small pieces of his model was wearing at his eyes. Off to Arthur's shop then. See if there's any work to be done on the ships docked at the harbor.

Greg stood and walked to the front of the shop. Kai was dusting off the shelves along the wall which made Greg think a bit. Why did he keep this part of the shop open? he never really got paid for the little trinket he made and put in the store. He only got paid for what he went out and put on peoples ships. Usually repairs or upgrades but thats about it. Should probably shut this part down move all the junk into a chest and store it incase its needed llater. However, it did give the hunk of junk something to do once in a while. Keep him out of the office and quiet at the very least. "Kai, Im heading over to the repair shop I'll be back. So keep an eye on things around here." Kai chittered a little bit and went back to dusting. "Kai watch the shop. Kai get out of the office. Kai take out the trash. Kai do this, Kai do that." Kai faded off into bits about scrapyards and useless again as Greg shook his head and walked out the door.

Immeditely as he walked out he could see the smoke billowing from a busted airship. "Should be a productive day then." Greg weaved his way down the streets towards the docks where he knew he would find Arthur.

Sure enough there by the ship was the man himself. Inspecting the busted ship to see what repairs needed to be done. Greg walked up and stood next to him. "Good bit of work you'll have on this one, eh Arthur?"
 
CLUNK!

A pair of bodies collided with William and sent his satchel flying into the air, with his pencil, keyboard, money, locket and paper spilling across the pavement. He found himself entangled with two men: one large, hairy and reaking of sweat... the other slender, pale and dressed in a watchman's coat.

"A pox upon you, knave!" shouted the watchman as he tried to work out which way was up and which way was down. "I'll clap you in irons for obstructing police business!"

The big man then stood up and pulled the watchman to his feet with him. In doing so, William noticed that the men were handcuffed together.

Roman glanced at his prisoner, "Thank you, Harry." Then blinked down at William. "My apologies, Sir. Mistook you for an urchin."

He stepped past William and pulled his giant of a prisoner with him, before hammering on the nearest shop door. "GREG! OPEN UP, DAMN YOU!" He lifted the handcuffs and rattled them, almost yanking Harry's arm from the socket. "I'VE LOST THE KEYS AGAIN! TELL KAI TO GET HIS CUTTING TORCH!"
 
Ignored again! How tragic. Oh well. Richard turned and went up to the next man, who was already in conversation with another. They introduced themselves as 'Robert Spaulding' and 'Sortaec'. Knowing their names meant half his work was done for him.

"Gentlemen," he said in a loud enough voice to be heard over the chaos outside, "you two look like you're in fine business this month. How would you like to buy some genuine Aether poetry?" He had no idea if there even was such a thing, but hopefully they'd be interested. And, if he got them talking, they might tell him something about James.
 
Sitting there where she was, she realized that it didn't seem like she was going to get any service soon and with that in mind, she stood with her bag hefted on her shoulder and her staff in hand to help her forward.

Based on her experience, the bar was always up front and ahead of the door but judging by the concentrated smell of liquor, it didn't take long to find it. Walking forward once more, she ignored the sudden silence that befell the place upon her entry and then threw her bag down and sat while leaning in and dropping a few coins on the counter "A beer would be nice.. And of course.. And the latest of news, if it's too troubling of ya.. ".
 
"I am sorry. I should have paid more attention. "

William did not even pay attention, after the collision. Frankly, he searched for his locket first. Grabbing it, he puts it in his shirt pocket. After gathering everything else, he attempted to walk away. His embarrassment was obvious. The word poetry hit his ears. William was intrigued. His lips moved from side to side. He didn't know whether to aquire poetry or not. It could not hurt to experince art not from his own imagination. This new place was going to be a different one.
 
His attention swerved to the man now inquiring upon his interest in poetry, personally Sortaec had never been much of a poet. Oh sure little ramblings of talking plants and animals found their way scrawled in his journals but that was about it. Never-the-less he found himself interested in this "Genuine Aether Poetry". What could someone who lived among the clouds possibly have to be poetic about? "Well good sir..." he replied. "I might be interested in it if you'd be so kind as to read an example of your skill" he grinned in response.
 
It seemed this Sortaec wasn't going to be an easy customer. Thankfully, Richard had planned ahead.

"I could indeed give you an example of my work. However, I would prefer it remain unrelated to Aether, as otherwise I would have to charge you. The poem I shall tell you is one I wrote just yesterday and will show you the full extent of my abilities. I hope this is satisfactory?" He pulled his small notebook from his pocket. "In fact, if you listen to my poem and enjoy it, I would be happy to throw it in with my genuine Aether poetry for free."
 
"Young man..." he replied. "let me get this straight..." he paused as if attempting to put together the right sentence. "You expect me to accept a poem that is not "Aether" poetry as an example of your talents but will not display your Aether poetry?" a look of confusion crossed his face. "What pray tell is your reason for advertising and I quote "Genuine Aether Poetry" if you are not willing to impart of sample of it?, or do you have a different end game you are hoping to reach?"
 
"My apologies." Forget money, this man was sharp. Sharp enough to have seen James. "I haven't been honest with you. I'm looking for my brother. He's a little taller than me, but we've been told we look very similar. Have you seen anyone like that while you've been around here? If you give me information, I will give you any kind of poetry you want. Unfortunately, it's my only form of currency."
 
"But on this little stay, I don't really know just how long I might stay this time, you know how some business goes, could be a day, could be months, but I'm prepared to pay ahead just in case. And as for my business...well...I won't bore you with the usual dribble, lets just say I'm here on a recruitment drive...and I'd love a little info on the coming and going of a few of the transients" he said with a sly smile.

"O well we definitely would've let you know if it hadn't been enough and you've been here more times since then, so I think you should be alright. Your ship doesn't look like it needs any work so you can just go see the clerk although I should tell you there's a bit of a line there at the moment as we just got quite a few ships in this morning and it does look like there's going to be quite a bit of work for me and the staff for quite a while…" Arthur ranted off comfortably to Uunia, used to shooting a bit of breeze with him. He was about to keep going when Greg stepped up and interrupted him.

"Good bit of work you'll have on this one, eh Arthur?"

"Oh Greg I was just about to send for you! I'm going to need some help on those engines and the steerage as well as you see there's quite a few ships in at the moment but this one's going to be the most work with engines and body work and even bot crew! But you let me take care of the bots since that's my specialty though I don't know why you don't bring in yours for me to take a look at. Anyway, we best not waste time here talking there's lots of work to do you know. Sorry I can't stay and talk, Mister Uunia, but we've got lots of work to do so if you'll excuse us and I think once you get through the clerk's office I'm sure the Captain would know better than me of anybody needing recruiting since I mostly deal with the ships and not so much with the people anyway so good day to you!" He put his arm around Greg's shoulder and headed off with him towards the Guardian of Paradise. "Greg, I'll leave the steering and the stabilizers to you, alright? Well, you can't get aboard right now, as you can see she's made a mess of my docks and it'll take about an hour to get her shifted down the line to Pier 12 since we'll be doing so much work on her I'll need her close to the shop and then of course I need to fix this berth as well which will put us short a space for a while which is a shame but it really can't be helped unless maybe we can put bumpers against the pier which sounds like a good idea! What do you think, Greg?"

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The clerk cleared his throat impatiently. "Ship name, length of stay and reason for docking, if you please," he repeated, his voice raising slightly.

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"A beer would be nice.. And of course.. And the latest of news, if it's too troubling of ya.. ".

Captain stepped down heavily from the stool where he'd been restocking some liquor. "Beer com in' right up, lass. As for news well, depends what sort o' news y'might be after, aye? Shippin' or harbour news?"
 
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