The New World

[Rosalia]

Rosie paced back and forth in her cabin, praying for the best, fearing the worst. She had never been in any sort of situation like this, and it scared her quite a lot.

She plopped down on her bunk and sulked. She was scared and somewhat bored, but finally she fell asleep.

[Arx Nimbus]

From where Arx stood on the deck he could see a single man with a gun at the foremost bow of the ship. His hands were shaking madly and he kept pointing the gun at the different crewmen who got too close. A body lay on the ground before him and a red puddle was creeping from underneath him toward the bystanders.
"Give it up! You're trapped!" shouted the leading crewman as he kept his pistol pointed at the man.

[Alexis Voltaire]

Luke almost jumped when he heard the shot outside, but stayed where he was for the moment. He wanted to find out what had just happened and help if he could, but he had to agree with Fergus, he was weaponless and rushing out in the dark toward what was likely a fight or a murder was hardly the best idea.

[Vancouver Air Privateer]

Cenek was still curious and frustrated with the crowd. Motioning to Alex, he exited the dining hall and made his way along the side of the boat, to try and bypass the crowd. They arrived at the edge of the group, who ship officials were trying to hold back to avoid worsening the situation.

He watched with grim fascination the little tableau in front of them. Doubtfully a premeditated murder... or perhaps it was one but something had gone wrong. Shooting a man out on the deck of a crowded ship seemed either an act of the moment, or a desperate move.

There was little he could do. He had not brought a pistol, pawning the one he had owned with the intention of purchasing a new one in America. He hadn't wanted to cause any complications with immigration. He was actually a fairly good shot.

He then saw Falko coming near them - and wielding his own pistol.

[The Corsair]

Falko crept toward where Luke had just appeared, attempting to keep as unseen as possible. If he needed, he had a plan.

[Arx Nimbus]

Arx looked over to the opposite side of the crowd and saw Cenek and Luke. Women were crying now.
The crazed man was still swinging his pistol around at the bystanders. He was panicking, sweat was dripping from his brow. There were at least eight crewmen at the front of the crowd.
"Put the gun at your feet and put your hands on your head!" one of the sailors called. "There isn't any way you can escape!" he said.

The shooter suddenly relaxed. He stopped pointing the gun at the crowd and put the barrel against the side of his head. He was crying now.

[The Sammy]

Julius pushed through the crowd that was quickly forming to watch the gunman, now that it look unlikely he was going to hurt someone else they became curious. He quickly looked around and saw the gunman pointing the gun at himself, and the body on the floor slowly leaking blood into the deck.
"Stop!" he yelled, mostly at the crewmen as he waved his hands at them. "Point those things somewhere else!" They look at him like he was mad, not moving their aim from the lone figure at the prow. Julius quickly lost interest in them and turned to face the shooter.
"Look, drop the gun sir! You need to put it down or these men are going to hurt you, and thee will be nothing  I can do to help. If you just put it down and be very gentle we can help you to sort this out! Just please pu-" There was a bang.
The gunman stayed upright for a moment, before gravity took over and he tumbled over the rails into the sea below.
Again, Julius attention shifted. There was no helping him now, he needed to forget the first dead and try to save at least one person.
He ran to the body in the middle of a complete clearing and gently rolled it over. He subconsciously examined the man, possibly late thirties with a short tangled beard and a scar on his cheek. He had been shot in his left shoulder, and was obviously in a lot of trouble. He was bleeding heavily from the wound, and there were fragments of bone in the surrounding skin. Julius knew that the wound had to be treated quickly, the bullet and bone removed and then the whole area cleaned.
"Quickly, someone get me some strong alcohol and cloth!" He shouted to one of the crewmen, but the man just look nonplussed. Julius looked around for someone who would do something, and spotted Falko to one side. He yelled at him to get the alcohol and cloth, and the man looked shocked for a moment before running off. Julius then yelled for some tweezers which a passenger threw him, and he began to pull the bone from the wound.
The man was unconscious, and had passed out from the pain. When Falko returned with the alcohol Julius quickly began coating everything in it, and then carefully removed the bullet. It was unlikely he would ever use the arm again, and it would be a miracle if he actually survived the infections that would follow.
With the wound emptied of shrapnel he bound it and doused it once more in alcohol. He felt the man's head and noticed he already had a raised temperature and was starting to shiver. He was already developing an infection and from now it was up to chance if he lived or not.

[The Corsair]

Once the bullet had been removed Falko could see that the wound was less than survivable. The sea spray on the deck would only be a catalyst to any infection.

Perhaps the most surprising part about the whole incident was that the injured man was picked up by the kitcheneers who had been on the deck. The man who had just put lead through his head was a crewman from the galley too. The whole thing was very bizarre.

A few minutes later, the news came from a kitchen hand that the wounded man had died, though his body was never actually seen by any passengers.

Those who had made it to the deck headed off to cabins for what they hoped would be a good night's sleep. Thankfully, those hopes became realities.

[The Corsair]

Two men find themselves side by side during another ritualistic session of dishwashing in the ship's galley. They hold hushed conversation. Those who would be bold enough as to eavesdrop would have to stand too close to remain unnoticeable. The spatially aware man could detect several such conversations or passing words occurring around the kitchen as innocent crewmen go about their daily kitchen business.

The sink voices continue on.

"The incident on the deck is worrying. It is a shame to lose Jeffrey, though he did do the right thing."

"Certainly. I do worry though. One man has heard. Thankfully Jeffrey solved the problem but the voyage is far from over and those who do not know how to mind their own business may hear things they shouldn't. Plus, someone will be asking questions."

"We've done a damned good job of keeping quiet all this time, it's barely difficult to continue in such a manner. If anyone comes snooping we close ranks, as we have always done."

Only the kitchen men are aware that many a similar conversation is being held around the various kitchen stations. Should one watch, they may catch a chain of command presently being used. Some instruction or parcel of information is being quietly shuffled from inconspicuous chef to common dishwasher to floor cleaner.


In the place known as Boston, a circle of men stand in a bizarre basement. Sigils and statuettes litter the floor, walls and numerous pedestals. Only one man is making sense of this haphazard scene. At times, a member of this most tight-knit yet widespread of groups may hear of The Alchemist. Only a few have had to come to terms with the necessity that they meet the man.

It is this man who stands in the centre of an unnatural fog. It is now that he opens his mouth as his hands make swift yet controlled movements. It can only be assumed that words and sounds are being emitted from the opened mouth as the fog becomes a fire that is cool to the touch. This is the culmination of many lives' work. This man will soon combine those sciences, new, old and forbidden, to realise what he and his associates call the American Dream.


In a newer land, where vast stretches of earth are unwatched, a secret industry exists. A captain is watching his new fleet come to life.


Where Spaniards lie closer than the nearest metropolis, a general awaits the arrival of a new breed of army.


Elsewhere, on frozen shores, a genius prepares and practices. Oratory can revolutionise cultures as well as any machine.


Plans begin to intertwine. Dimensions follow.

[Rosalia]

The last few weeks had been good for Rosie, she had opened up because of her new friends and her blossoming relationship with Falko. She had developed a better sense of humor and shaken off a lot of her upbringing, she was certainly more outgoing.

However, she was still shaken up by the events of that one night. She had, with the help of Falko, unloaded her gun and sewed the pocket that used to be on her dress into the inside of her luggage so that no one could get to it.

Rosie had a feeling of nervousness and excitement, they would arrive in two days.

[The Sammy]

Julius Had spent a lot of the first week drinking away the look on the gunman's face... He hadn't been short of a drink, as a lot of people had come up and clapped him on the back, offering to buy him another one of- to be honest he didn't know what half the drinks were.
He had begun to return to normal, and even begun to hang around with the fairly unofficial group that had formed. There was no set group, just a wash of various people joining and leaving, going about their own business (little as there was on the ship) and then joining up again to talk and socialise.

[Man of Steam]

Alex began to pack his bag. The voyage was close to finishing, and he wanted to have everything set. Nothing exciting had occured since the incident, but he had gotten to know more about the group he had found himself a part of. There was never an answer given for the killings, but Alex just assumed it was a disgruntled, and possibly insane crew member. He still couldn't believe that he was two days from America.

[MWBailey]

Fergus had that feeling that soldiers get, just before a battle, when one can just feel that something big is coming up that might change everything forever. The shooting was an odd, worrying occurrence. it seemed tgo Fergus to be but a sign of a greater problem, like the rock in the potato field that broke the plow had had turned out to be not just a biggish boulder, but (after digging around it for a day and a night) seemed to be an up-jutting part of the bedrock under the field. Instead of just lifting it out, one had to change ones entire lkan for the field. potatoes, yes, but planted around the rock.

A similar feeling had struck Fergus on this day; he couldn't say how, or why, but he had the same feeling now that he had had the first time he encountered that rock, that there might be more to it than just what he could see...                                                                       

[Arx Nimbus]

Arx leaned on the rail and let the sea wind sweep his hair across and the sea spray splash his face.
The last two weeks since the shooting went slowly.
It had seemed like the rude people, with high social class and heads held higher, were asking to have their pride taken from them. Arx had been depositing half of these items into Ceneks room as planned.
Arx had been through the shooters victims room, looking for clues but leaving everything the way he found it in respect for the deceased. He had found nothing of great importance. There seemed to be only books, the scrawling of a madman. They had closed it off earlier but thankfully the entire ship was entangled with air ducts; hot and stuffy, but access tunnels to someone of Arx' profession.

[Alexis Voltaire]

Luke watched quietly as the mess hall staff took the wounded man below. He supposed it was because they were the closest available help, but it seemed like a ship this big ought to have it's own medical staff, and there had been enough time for them to have gotten there to help. He returned to his cabin a short time later, and though he expected to stay awake for some time sorting through what had just happened, he quickly fell asleep.

The dreams that came to him were deep and wordless, memories of night under a sky bright with stars and shadowed by leaves and branches far overhead, filled with a chorus of insects and the calls of strange birds and hunting creatures. A warm wind in the cool night, bringing scents of distant things, a jackal's kill, a camp of men by the river and the smell of their strange food and cooking fire. The damp, heavy, muddy smell of the river, the delicate scent of flowers perfumed to attract both nectar and carrion eaters... The faint rustle of a creature passing carefully through the undergrowth close by... Ears quickly turning to listen more closely, and shifting noiselessly, fluidly to rise, a flash of black stripes on white and rust fur...

---

---

There was much talk among the passengers over the next several weeks about the shooting, but Luke hadn't been able to find out anything more that what he head seen and heard the night it had happened. He found it odd that there was no official explanation and little speculation about why it had taken place, and it seemed that the ship's crew knew as little as they did.

After he had eaten breakfast he began to pack up the few things he had used over the past few weeks, mainly just clothes and a few odds and ends. The last thing he packed was a thick worn-looking book with a faded blue cover that he had read and occasionally taken notes in during his spare time. It appeared to be a journal of sorts, the first half was filled with slightly faded handwritten lines of some form of devanagari, and many newer notes and one or two new pages had been added in the same script. When he had finished arranging everything so fit properly, he closed the suitcase and snapped the clasps shut, and set it back down beside his bunk. Having nothing else to do at the moment, he decide to head up on deck for walk.

[Vancouver Air Privateer]

Cenek nodded approvingly as Arx brought him the latest haul. The boy was good - very good. There was no doubt about that.

"Hmm... what careless people." he mused. The boy was also clever enough to not take too big of a haul from anywhere... but still, there was a small fortune waiting to be pawned here. Combined with the considerable sum of money hidden in the secret compartment of his case (no good to have that fall prey to Arx or his ilk) he should have enough to purchase what he intended to.

He had also questioned the boy on what he had found in the murderer's room, but apparently nothing. Cenek was a cautious man. It paid to be a cautious man. He had spent most of the ride socializing - musing with Alex and Rosie and Falko over America, talking to Falko some more about a partnership.

"So, my boy, the voyage is almost ended." he said to Arx, looking over an interesting bejeweled ring. "Have you decided what you intend to do in America? Is the profession of thief to be a life for you?"

[The Corsair]

It was Falko, with a sense of steadiness and drive, who acted upon his suspicions of something perhaps deeper within the ship's crew.

There were many nights when he would skulk around crew areas, keeping to shadows and doing his best to look genuinely lost when he was chanced upon. He heard many things, mostly frivolous ship chatter, but some left him with more questions than what he began with. It was among the kitchen hands and chefs, a tight-knit bunch, that he brushed the surface of something that ran deeper than he even knew at the time.

He learned that the suicidal man was Jeffrey, a kitchen hand from Boston aboard the ship. The man with the bullet wound died soon after, though chatter of that was minimal. The facts around that particular matter bizarrely seemed to indicate that the man had been taken to the kitchen rather than the medical bay. It also became known to him that Jeffrey, and indeed all the galley staff, knew something of utmost secrecy and importance. It was the acquiring of some part of this knowledge that had caused the passenger to be shot. Upon discovering this, he left the crew areas well enough alone.

He spent most of the rest of his time with Rosie, who had come out of her shell somewhat and had certainly developed a far more open sense of humour. He did his best to hide his distraction by the information he had gleaned.

Today, he would assemble the ragtag group that he gad certainly come to call his friends to share something of genuine importance to their mortality.
Arrival was soon to come, and with it would come the most chilling knowledge of all.
He planned to tell the others now, while they had time to make a plan but not enough time to make every passenger hysterical. Too many of them had bore witness to the shooting. Witnesses were a problem.
The kitchen staff were going to destroy the ship in harbour and pass it off as an accident...

[Man of Steam]

"Ok Falko, we are all here, so what did you want to talk about?" Alex asked, sitting on his bed. Their little room was filled with their new companions, all summoned by Falko to his cabin to talk about something he had discovered. Despite sharing a room with him, Alex still hadn't figured it out, though he had his suspicions, but nothing was certain yet.

[Rosalia]

Rosie squeezed her way into the room, she had been invited to this little meeting, but she had no idea what it was about.

"Sorry I'm late," She said, "A little boy on deck sidetracked me on the way over."

[Arx Nimbus]

Spoiler: ShowHide

Cenek nodded approvingly as Arx brought him the latest haul. The boy was good - very good. There was no doubt about that.

He had also questioned the boy on what he had found in the murderer's room, but apparently nothing. Cenek was a cautious man. It paid to be a cautious man.

"So, my boy, the voyage is almost ended." he said to Arx, looking over an interesting bejeweled ring. "Have you decided what you intend to do in America? Is the profession of thief to be a life for you?"

"It is what I am best at... But I won't do it for my own benefit. I am merely a re-distributor of the overflow of wealth some have. Too much wealth can destroy a man." he said. "So, I will continue my duties once we reach America. But this shooting has got me wary. I don't know who I can trust." he said as Cenek continued to look through the various items Arx had brought to him.

--

Falko's room was fairly large compared to the others. Which made it best to have this meeting in... The others were here too. Arx sat on a table at the back. Rosie stepped in through the door and locked it behind her.

[The Corsair]

With everyone assembled, he began bluntly.

"the ship will be destroyed in harbour."
He paused to let the news sink in somewhat
"it is the kitchen crew. The whole ship saw the shooting incident and they can't have questions asked by anyone. I dint know what the shot man found out from the kitchen crew but they needed him silenced. The plan plan was made to have him killed and have the killer commit suicide. The whole scene on the deck was orchestrated.
I don't know how deep this runs but before anything else happens we need to find a way off the ship before it is destroyed. It is a shame, but we cannot warn the other passengers or hysteria will break out and we will all be slaughtered."

[Rosalia]

Rosie gasped and almost fainted. She knew this had something to do with the shooting, but she had never assumed this. It did explain why Falko had been so distant lately, but still.

She almost started crying.

"What will we do?"

[Man of Steam]

Alex was shocked. He had expected it to do with the shooting, but not this.
"What will we do?" said Rosie, a tone of what Alex though sounded like shock entered her voice. Alex thought about what he would say, then he rose.
"What are we going to do? It's obvious, we need to steal a ship or stop the crew. We can't stop the crew, they'll just say we're crazy, and they outnumber and outgun us. So we have to somehow steal a boat, or boats to fit all of us, and do it in the next day." Alex finished, and looked at his companions, judging their reactions to what he had just said.

[Vancouver Air Privateer]

Cenek nodded slowly. Suddenly all of the garbled nonsense that Arx had reported to him was starting to make sense - not the the ranting of an insane man, but a rightfully paranoid one.

He looked around the room - some people he knew better than others, but they were all connected through each other, somehow.

He smiled at Rosie encouragingly.

"Do not worry, my lady. Falko is cunning enough to have uncovered all of this."

He paced slowly.

"Now, let us be logical. We are still at sea. If we wish to escape, the best method would be a lifeboat. The best way to escape in a lifeboat would be at night."

He mused.

"Still... it seems... distasteful to just leave all these people to their fates. Thus, I propose, a radical solution. These people wish to sink the boat? Why do we not sink it first?"

He grinned at the shocked responses.

"Think about it. I assume to outright kill all witnesses, they plan to explode the ship quickly, then make their own escape beforehand. But what if we act first - make a smaller hole and start the ship sinking? There will be an evacuation of everyone on board.Of course, we will have made our own evacuation by then..."

He smiled some more. "I myself have knowledge of how steam engines work. Our friend Arx here has some... notable talents. You are a strong lad. Alex is a superb actor - a superb distraction. I say we arrange for a little engine accident - that will also cause the boat to slow, making an escape in our own boat much safer. We will need to work together, but I think it can be done."

[Arx Nimbus]

Arx nodded.
"Fight fire with fire. I like it." he said. "What of the crewmen after the ship sinks?" he asked. "They'll be looking for us. The passengers will tell them if they're threatened. The worst part is they can blame the sinking of the ship on us and report it to the officials in America. We'll be fugitives before we land." he said.