10 April NByr5
Our return from Cala Mondrago was quiet, and it was marked with a certain degree of restlessness on both our parts. In spite of Kimika’s normal predisposition to fly ourselves, I opted to get passage on the Air Packet back home, since it would give both of a little time to relax before returning to the normal pace of life. I’m not sure how many times I nodded off during the trip, but I do know my new copy of The Army-Navy Journal spent more time in the floor than in my hands. Having managed to break the point of my last sharp pencil, I absently fished in the pocket of my traveling coat for my penknife, and instead came out with a lovely piece of silk cloth, the cloth that had so recently contained the prize money from the fencing tournament. Rolling the cloth between my fingers, I recalled my feelings from earlier in the trip about even bothering to enter. I hadn’t been back on the piste since Dr Dayafter left town, and perhaps I wondered if my lack of practice would put me at too great a disadvantage. I found my answer written in weathered ink on the flyleaf of my journal, “Fortes fortuna adiuvat”. Fortune favors the bold. As if to add punctuation to my thought, Kimika stirred in the seat, leaning her head over onto my shoulder. The dance contest had been an ever greater gamble. Granted, I had watched my step-mother dance, and have had the opportunity to see others dance while I was working for the Foreign Office, but it was wholly another to do it myself. I hastily repointed my pencil and made a note to check on the workshop when I returned home to New Babbage. It would be nice to have a space of my own to work on things, and the looks of the new place would give us the room to work on whatever things we had in mind, given the ceiling height of the factory and the various shops I had been borrowing for my sundry few projects. I put everything back in my travel case, and tucked myself in for the rest of the flight. Given the pace of my life, I expect a little quiet time is not a bad thing at all.

(Once again, work conspired to delay the blog entry. So, if you were curious where I was, here you go)

The “Deerhound” rode quietly at anchor in Clockhaven, the gangway packed with departing passengers headed ashore. The crew was especially pleased with the departure of one particular passenger, one that raised such an unusual level of fear none dared speak her name, simply referring to her as 'Stateroom 5”. The Purser and the Chief Steward watched as the black-clad lady walked quietly towards the ramp, her pale skin in sharp contrast to the raven braid on the back of her head. The tulle veil shaded her features, but they knew the icy eyes could cut as well as her thin cruel mouth. The Purser mustered up a cheerful greeting, even though just being near her made the hair stand on the back of his neck.
“Good day, Miss...”
She turned, smiling.
“It’s Mrs.”
The purser stood transfixed for a moment, as she glided down the ramp, valise in hand. He watched her walk off into the crowd, to be swallowed up by the back alleys of Clockhaven. He shifted a moment, then headed back to his cabin for a rare morning drink.

The woman slid quietly into the back entrance of the Aether Salon, and moved with a silent swiftness in spite of the heavy fabric of the gown she wore. She moved along the rows of shelves in the long hall, and came upon the lone occupant of the office. The redhead sat at the desk, making entries in a well-worn bound journal. She wrote with a deliberate slowness, so as to insure that each word was perfect and correct. Pauses were interjected with a finger tap or a quick sweep of her hair at the temple, and a return to the measured cadence of pen to inkwell to paper.

“Well, well, what have we here?”
The pale woman’s voice reverberated with a shrill rattle, like a cat’s claws on a chalkboard. The redhead leapt to her feet, fluidly drawing the dagger at her side and dropping into a fighter’s edged stance, the bare steel of the blade lying ready against her forearm.

“What are you doing here Un…” the redhead questioned, her voice rich with malice.

The dark clad pale woman slowly raised her right hand in front of her, and reached up with her left to remove the veiled hat. She began to chuckle, the voice changing to one that the redhead was much relieved to hear…
“Easy there chica, you don’t want to cut the boss do you?”

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Personal Journal
16 July NByr4

It feels good to be back home.

Of course, I’m lucky that Sky has a sense of humor.

The airship ride out of REDACTED was not bad, but being the paranoid soul that I am…it was time for a little track coverage. So, before starting the final leg home, I made a stop in the station’s lavatory. Where a comfortably dressed ruddy skinned redhead entered, a pale raven-haired spinster exited. I even took the time to cobble up a set of travel papers, to complete the illusion. Hopefully, if official inquiries are made, our favorite baker will have a few irregularities in her background. I played it up, even going so far as to parrot her voice. I’m sure Star wondered why I spent so much time imitating Phaedra while we were sitting in the Gangplank. Too bad she wasn’t there to see all that effort bear fruit. Of course, I may have overdone it a bit, because I’m sure the crew was fairly traumatized by the gaunt visage I displayed on the transit back to Babbage. Poor blokes. Knowing what I know about your average sailor, and how superstitious they can be helped me to draw just enough attention so they left me alone.
I suppose it was a good thing, as I needed more time to decompress after the mission. Damn those bastards at the Ministry for dragging me back in on their problems. I’m sure that this may be over, but I also know that this may not be the last time they pull the Queen and Country bit back out on me.
We made landfall in Clockhaven, and after the last parade past the staff, I cut back across the old familiar alleys of home. The Gangplank was unusually empty, but I decided that showing up there would be pushing my luck a bit too much, so I cut back across to the office.
I slid up the back entrance, and saw Sky at my desk working on some paperwork for the agency. I was relieved, and it made me happy to see that I had called that one correctly when I took her on as an associate. Of course, I wanted to see just how good I had done on the dye job and the make up, and lucky for me I didn’t end up having to fight my new employee.
I used the voice on her while she was engrossed in writing, and she reacted as I expected she would. Sky shot out of the chair like I had electrocuted her when I used the Phae voice. I so wanted to go one more step at that point, but I was so amused I broke back into my normal tone and pulled off the gloves, so she saw the scars on my forearms.
I went up to the loft, scrubbed off the makeup and changed back into something a little less severe. The only thing that bothers me now is that the hair dye was a touch stronger than I expected, so I may be a brunette until it grows back out. Sky wanted to know what I had been up to and what I had done. I couldn’t tell her all the details, other than it was business. Somehow that managed to placate her for now, but I know that eventually, she’ll ask again.
For now, it’s time to get back to Babbage business.

Since the New Babbage Ning will be going away, I will be interleaving all the posts I made over there that never got posted here, so expect some new entries, and some topic juggling..

I went down to the lockup and did a little digging in my file cabinet, and found the jacket on Mr. Mureaux. The advantage of being in the right place at the right time was I managed to liberate a few documents that the former administration was getting rid of...purely for safe keeping, and I had been given a mandate from City Hall to 'keep an eye on things in town'. Passing my dressing table I caught a look at myself, and realized I needed to get some rest and eat a bit better. Somehow I was looking as rough as I felt at the moment. I'm sure some of the new folks in town think I have some dread disease, and my old friends are thinking it must be another bout of 'case focus'.

I returned back upstairs to my desk, and started rereading some of the notes in the jacket. Several tepid cups of coffee and half a box of cigarettes later, the holes in the information loomed like canyons...there was a lot I did know, and even more I couldn't be quite sure of...I stretched, and yawned, gazing up at the sky through the skylight, when I noticed a tiny glimmer there in the rafters. I leaned back and feigned another big stretch to get a look at it, and could just make out the detail as I went back to the desk. My first suspicion was that it was a lens, attached to a prism. We used something similar to see into rooms, by use of a long distance telescope. Being surveilled didn’t annoy me nearly as much as having it happen in my bedroom. Call me old fashioned, but having some stranger watching my boudoir is just not cricket. So as to not arouse any suspicion, I dressed and headed out as I would on any other day.

It was a gamble. I could have gone ahead and looked at the device, but that would have tipped my hand, so I opted for the wait and see approach. In order for it to work, if it was what I thought it was, someone would need to be nearby. I changed into something appropriately dowdy, pulled on a bonnet and headed out the ‘bailout’ door. Circling back around, I saw folks doing their normal things, and then I saw him. A very average man, in a very average suit, sitting reading a paper. I managed to do a bit of shopping while keeping an eye on him, and we made several laps around town. He did circle by Wheatstone, and lingered a bit on a bench near Nell’s place. He then walked back around towards the Salon, and he ended back where I saw him first. Odd, yes, suspicious, maybe…but nothing I could really pin to anyone. I ducked into the music hall and changed again, and he had wandered off towards Clockhaven. He took a seat in the park for a bit, and walked off again towards the Mews. The odd bit was that he left his newspaper on the bench as he walked off. I made sure he was gone, circled the block once, and went back and had a seat on the bench. It took me a minute, but I found it. Carefully concealed under the slats was a small sealed cylinder. The bench was a dead drop. At this point, I decided to go ahead and play the hand I was dealt. I took the cylinder, and headed back to the office.

It was near dusk, so I slid into my darksuit and headed for the roof. It took a bit of looking, but I eventually found it. It was a small device, and it appeared to be some sort of recording device. Took a bit of doing, but I dislodged it and placed it in a bag. Just for good measure, I checked the rest of the skylights and once I decided it was clear I returned to my office.

Feeling a bit safer now that I'd checked the office, I moved down to the lab to take a look at what I had found. The container I found at the drop had a long roll of paper in it, written in a language I didn't readily recognize. It was in a tabular format, and appeared to be a list of notes. I made a photographic copy of the sheet, and figured to do a bit of research in the library to see if I could decipher the writing.

The device was a bit more complex. It was by my best determination some sort of optical recording device, with a cunningly small logic engine and some sort of transmitter. While it was unmarked, it did remind me of something...during the airship regatta I had the chance to look at the guidance and control systems on one of the Arcanian entries during the preliminaries, and somehow the mechanisms seemed very similar in construction.

I sat back and thought about what evidence I had. Yeah, it was thin, and very circumstantial. The most conclusive part was that it corroborated the story Zac told me, even if it didn't have the 'smoking gun' linkage I would have liked. My guts told me that if I didn't move on this that it would become much harder to trace once my watcher found out I had his little device. I packaged up the device and the cylinder, and wrote a note which I attached to the package. I went out the front door, and walked to Moses' office. I went inside, and left the package on his desk. Returning to the salon, I bolted the door, and curled up under my comforter.

"Moses,
I believe this is yours. We need to talk. Now.
Jed"

“Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice (Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll)

(egads, please insert the standard Bookworm private journal disclaimer here. "waves hands")

I'm back at my desk, to recount all of this...while part of me is saying there is nothing going on, part of my mind is screaming and pointing that something is not right. Maybe I am getting old and complacent.

It all started earlier this weekend. I was feeling rather like taking a walk to get a bit of air and to enjoy the warmth of the spring air, so I headed out of the salon and worked my way along Academy Downs towards the depot. As I passed the MacBain house, I caught a bit of music from a cylinder machine floating out the window, so I figured I'd be social and stop in. Proximity and circumstance had given me an opportunity to become friends with Stargirl, and since Kaylee moved in I like stopping in and checking on the both of them.

I knocked, and heard Kaylee's voice say come in. I walked upstairs, and what I saw was disquieting funny ... odd? Kaylee sat in the chair by the fireplace, dressed in a very fine dress, ankles crossed demurely, reading a book. As long as I have known her, this was not a typical pose, or behavior. I was really willing to give her a pass on the dress, since I myself have tried to wear skirts a bit more often myself. But this was almost beyond the pale...I mean, I have seen Kaylee in ballgowns for some of the Piermont affairs, but she always kids me that it was almost under duress...the running joke was that you can't recalibrate a throttle governor in crinoline. Yet there she was....the other bit was the reading material itself. I know she reads penny dreadfuls, or technical manuals...but this was proper literature.

We chatted for a bit, and I felt like I was talking to a stranger in many ways. I noted a touch of fear and apprehension in her voice...not so much from things, but it felt like she was scared of me. It was like we were strangers, not friends who had fought invasions, disarmed devices, and rescued people from merfolk together.

I looked at my watch and decided that I should go. Just before I did, Star walked in and sat down on the couch. She was dressed in workboots and trousers, and sat in a casual sprawl that I would have more expected of her roommate. We exchanged cheerful hellos and goodbyes, and I walked out and immediately headed to the cafe for some coffee.

Something's going on. I can sense it in my guts, despite the casual assurances from both of them that it is just a joke.

I need more coffee.

Location: Victory Hall, #12 Academy Downs, Babbage Palisade, New Babbage

Synopsis: On 12 February subjects unknown flew an airship into the dome of the Victory Hall opera house. The crash started a fire in the structure, causing major structural damage to the building. The fire was contained to the structure by the Fire Brigade. The airship was a total loss. Current suspects unknown.

Personal Notes:
Some days a girl just can't get a break.

I had been out most of the day, and was looking forward to a long bath and a quiet evening at the Salon. I was in the process of undressing in my apartment when I head an airship pass overhead at full throttle. This in itself is not unusual, since we seem to be home to a great number of jack-leg airship pilots who substitute finesse with airspeed. I was pulling off one boot when I heard a thump and the peculiar sound of breaking glass. Looking out the window, I saw the long plume of smoke and the aft end of the offending airship sticking out of the opera house dome. Cursing my luck, I pulled on my bunker gear, pulled the remote alarm ringer, and ran down the street towards the crash site.

By the time I arrived at the scene, the alarm was going out to the rest of the Brigade. I pulled the hose out of the firelocker and began to climb the roof access. I hadn't been up long when the dome collapsed from the spreading flames. Between the engines and the gasbag of the airship, the roof was burning with some enthusiasm. What worried me more was what I saw through the bare ribs of the dome...stacks and stacks of whiskey barrels. Apparently Gatsby had been storing his reserve whiskey in the attic of the opera house. I tried to keep the hose trained on the fire, but it was apparent that one line was not going to be enough. Sera and the girls had arrived downstairs and were trying to get some lines running inside. Since they were there now, it dawned on me that we needed the fire service airship. Sera had the same idea, and she started screaming at me to get off the roof and go get the bird. So I slid down the drainpipe and set off at a run to the aeroport.

Luckily for me, the boys at the hanger were paying attention to the clamor and had the bird gassed and loaded when I got there. One short flight later and the first bucket of water was dropping in on the dome. I made three runs, loading the bucket from the pond on the greens side of the wall, but I noticed that the pond was not going to yield any more water, so I angled off towards the canals to refill. The fourth load was the charm, so I wheeled over and landed in the street to see how bad the damage was.

Poor Gatsby was beside himself. I expect he'd be well into whatever he had stashed at home once we had finished securing the doors. He asked me to take a look at the wreckage, so I got my kit and made the climb to the roof again. The airship was nothing but charred metal, and I really couldn't tell if anyone had been onboard at the time of the crash. I found several bits of paper on the roof...tracts and flyers from some temperance group. Ironically, most of them had been spared from the fire by my initial attempts to put it out.

I told Gatsby that I had found a few things, and that I had a few things to sort out back at the lab. He thanked me for helping, so I said good night and thanks to the rest of the Fire Mistresses who came out and went home.

So the question is where did the airship come from? Who was piloting it? Why the opera house? Who else knew the liquor was stored in the dome?

The investigation is ongoing.

Miss J. Dagger
Terranova Investigative Services
Aether Salon, 2nd Floor
#24 Academy Downs
Babbage Palisades, New Babbage

(this was originally posted in three parts on the New Babbage Ning, as an RP lead-in for the Aether Salon in December of 2009. The topic was Shanghaied! and was held in the Steelhead Shanghai sim)

( Read more )

Wow, what a week. I would like to thank everyone who came out, and for the patience displayed by the participants as we got everything sorted out. We had a very large crowd, and I hope that the participants had a good time. Because of sim logistics, and trying to balance fight and lag, I opted to go with a 3 on 3 lineup. It worked out rather well, and I hope that everyone enjoyed themselves.

Round one had Scoundrel Fleet wave 1 versus Steeltopia. Steeltopia won, but I must give kudos to the lone Armadan in the Mosquito who kept it alive until the end.

Round two was Scoundrel Fleet wave 2 versus New Babbage Navy. It was a brutal fight, but we managed to pull out the win for the home team.

Round three was a pickup free-for-all with Mosquitos. I was told that Sandi Levee won by acclimation and survival.

Emperor Calamari and I are working out the details for the Steeltopia/Babbage squareoff...I had hoped to do it last night, but Ball night and crew coordination took front seat.

I hope we can do it again sometime, and I can say I have several ideas to make the event a bit smoother should we set one up.

Thanks to:
Remington Thursday and The Scoundrel Fleet for bringing a good crowd and being good sports
Emperor SteelCobra Calamari of Steeltopia
All the individual sailors who came out
Clockwinder Tenk, for giving me the 'Voice of God' for one night

Location: Academy Downs, near Brunel Hall, Academy of Industry, New Babbage

Synopsis: On this date Mr. Maurice Dimanovic, was killed by a single gunshot wound to the back. he was discovered lying face down in the in street (Academy Downs). A passerby discovered the body.

Personal Notes:
It had been a quiet sort of day. I was coming back to the salon when I was nearly bowled over by some dowdy domestic screaming at the top of her lungs. She bumped into me, all wild eyed, screaming murder in the street.

Murder. Just what I needed. Once again, my little city has conspired to put me to work.

It didn’t take long to get to the scene, as the body was only a short walk up Academy Downs from the office. I recognized the body at once. It was Maurice Dimanovic, the charming newcomer who had talked to me at the CocoaJava, and had been dancing with me right before the Mactavish incident. Now, here he was, face down in the street.

I couldn’t tell much more about it but the cause of death was evident to me on the first pass over the body..he had a large gunshot wound in his back. Hopefully, once we got him into Dr Dayafter’s office we could find out more.

He had a key clasped in his right hand. It was engraved “Room 202, Smythe Hostel”. In his left, he had a piece of paper with a red X on it. Our friend had apparently struck again, same as with the Janick girl. I took the key and the paper, bagged them, and waited on the coroner’s wagon.

Once the body was safely on it’s way to the morgue, I made my way to Clockhaven. I arrived and found Mr. Footman and Miss MacBain in the room, looking around and rummaging through the few scant possessions Mr. Dimanovic left behind. I spoke to them briefly, and they both left shortly thereafter. Fin walked in after that, and he kept me company while I took stock of what was there.

There was a chest in the corner, and it held some very disquieting items. There were three ambrotypes in the chest, one of Fullerton House, one of Brunel Hall, and one group shot taken at Piermont Landing after the announcement of Miss Mactavish’s engagement. One of the faces was circled in red, with the handwritten note underneath…”MJ, this is our target”. It was Victor Mornington. This put a whole new spin on things, and especially the night I saw them together. There were several small vials in it as well. I opened one, and caught a whiff of bitter almonds. Prussic Acid.

There was a ledger in the room, full of handwritten notes about property values, income projections, stock market findings, financial information on our Mr. Mornington’s holdings in Babbage.

Fin Twine burst into the room, looking for me. He told me the rest of the story, which filled in some of the blanks in the story. He told me that both of them were in the Gangplank that afternoon, talking and drinking. According to Fin, Maurice gave Victor a glass of absinthe, and after Victor took a drink of it he collapsed. He said Maurice ran out of the bar, babbling about how he would loot the hotel and take all the money.

Only one thing to do, and that was go talk to Victor.

He was over at Fullerton House, in his study. I talked to him at length, and he told me much the same thing Fin had. He told me he noticed the prussic acid in the drink, and he played up how much it affected him. He was honestly surprised to hear about the shooting, and I had to ask him the one question that I had to know. I asked him if he owned a rifle and he said no. All of his responses seemed honest enough, and while he had motive, it didn’t seem that he had the motivation.

The final thing he said was very intriguing, that he had run into a stranger while he was walking back to Brunel Hall. He said they talked for a bit, and the last thing the stranger said, when Victor talked about all that was going on in town was that “People should be careful”.

Careful indeed.

The investigation is ongoing.

Miss J. Dagger
Terranova Investigative Services
Aether Salon, 2nd Floor
#24 Academy Downs
Babbage Palisades, New Babbage

Location: Piermont Landing, Wheatstone Waterways

Synopsis: On this date Miss Obedience Mactavish, age unknown, was killed in an apparent robbery while attending a dance at Piermont Landing. The suspect, a Professor Parx, escaped the scene in a rocket assisted wheelchair. The motive is still undetermined.

Personal Notes:
Sometimes, you can be in the right place at the wrong time. It's my luck, or lack thereof.

I had a new gown for the dance, and realized way too late that it was a masquerade. So, a quick stop by the office for a mask and my tinted spectacles were as close as I was going to get to a fine ball masque. I was not expecting much to happen, and given the normal state of dancing held very reserved expectations. Somehow, i still had a feeling that I should take the normal precautions so I slid the thigh holster for the Merwin up over my stocking. Full skirted ballgowns are good for something after all.

I took the tram from the Salon to the Bow Street Station, and other than the bump over by Kahruvel it was a smooth ride. I walked in and noticed that there were lots of new faces in attendance. Obviously, my little town is becoming more cosmopolitan.

I was dancing with Maurice Dimanovic, another of the new faces who has been effusively charming, when Miss Mactavish and a man entered. I assumed that this was her manservant after he scuttled off to get her a drink. She stood at the foot of the stairs, while I danced out in the middle of the dance floor. The manservant, who she called Sweetwater, went off in search of drinks. It was then that a man in a wheelchair confronted her. I recognized him as a Treloar Parx, a known troublemaker and bush-league villain. Whatever he said to her started a murmur through the crowd of ‘she eats babies?’, so as much as my ego wanted to pay attention to what Mr Dimanovic was saying, my attention was on the two up front. To add to the problem, a cluster of idlers keen on seeing what was going on had filled in the gap between us. Parx produced a small handgun and demanded a key from Miss Mactavish. Mr Sweetwater attempted to interviene, but Parx fired a single shot, downing Miss Mactavish. He then took her necklace, which presumably held the key, and flew away. Yes, flew. The wheelchair had some sort of flying apparatus, and it shot straight up off of the floor, and I lost it in the night sky. I tried to turn to the downed lady, but before I could negotiate the crowd, Sweetwater began an incantation and vanished, along with the body of Miss Mactavish. By now the crowd was very worked up, but I could make out part of what he said…”Papa Legba”. I bowed out of the dance, and tried to get over to that part of the floor but it was too late. The onlookers were quite shaken, the most vocal of these was Miss Riel, who ran from the floor in tears.

I realized that this was not a matter in which I had been hired to investigate, but the pangs of curiosity got the better of me. I walked over to the other side of the dance floor, and chatted briefly with a few of the dazed onlookers. The chatter was mixed, and there were several whispered rumors of missing children, and some talk that the sandhogs working on the sewers had found a number of bones in the lines. Book and Ceejay were there, and both of them looked like they were in shock. I wanted to tell them that I would be looking into things, but they were too stunned for that, so I left.

I went back to the Salon, changed into something a little more appropriate for working, and got my field gear together. The first place I headed was to the Excelsior, since I knew that Miss Mactavish had let a room there. Her room was unlocked, so I went in to see if there was anything of note to be seen. The room was quite bare, with the exception of a large chest. The chest contained a journal, and given the fact that I was not ready to answer for my presence in her room should I be caught, I decided to take the book, and make a transcribed copy for further analysis. There wasn’t anything else of note in the room, so I slipped out and returned to the lobby.

Given the information I had learned at the ball, I then decided a search of the sewers might yield some more evidence. I knew the city maintenance gang had a pirogue tied up under city hall, so I headed down under the street to look for more. I found a small dock in one of the back alcoves near the hotel, and on it was the most shocking bit of evidence in this whole affair. Hidden in a small room was what amounted to a butcher shop. The area was bloody, and led me to believe that it had been used for some sort of food preparation. Why was it here? The bit of evidence I did find was small, and would have been missed on a casual examination, but when I saw it, and realized what it was, made me both sickened and angry. On the floor, lodged between the floorboard, was a bone. It was small, and oddly shaped, and it took a moment to identify…not animal. It was a metacarpal bone, one of the small ones in the wrist, and I assume by its size it belonged to a child. I placed it in an envelope, and looked at the block itself. I worked my way back to the stairs, and came out in the alley behind the hotel.

I don’t know how to proceed. I need to read the journal, and find out just what is so valuable in those pages. There are still too many questions, and I have too few answers.


The investigation is ongoing.

Miss J. Dagger
Terranova Investigative Services
Aether Salon, 2nd Floor
#24 Academy Downs
Babbage Palisades, New Babbage