Chapter 1: The Key
There is a land in the Sands of Time that tries to maintain civility and innovation amidst goblin hordes, harsh temperatures, and Dark Age traditions. Where citizens enslaved in mines and caked in dust still strive to be at the height of fashion with tail coats and top hats. Thus, the aristocracy is blurred and people are only valued for their resourcefulness, because in a wasteland those who make the most of little are kings. The land is Sternway embedded in the Desert Chronos in the world of Victerra Ferma.
There are nine major cities in Sternway and several outlying towns that are little more than fuel ports for airships or stops on a caravan. The nine major cities include: Blowdon and Aquinox in the south, the Pentagonal cities in the center (Pestelle, Dwellings, Hecklen, Shifton, and Taulgatts), to the north east is the city of Relique, and the crown jewel of Sternway at the northern tip is the City of Golden Gears. The City of Golden Gears is the promised land and the pinnacle of ingenuity and intellectualism. Or so it was, before the mechanized plague... Before the Rust set in.
There is a drumming of footsteps on the sand that beats simultaneously with a cloaked figure’s heart. A whirring noise is following about a hundred yards behind. The slender shrouded figure quickly comes to a fifty foot tin wall with rotating turrets at each corner; seemingly impossible to scale and even less possible to penetrate. They are the walls of Blowdon and at this time of night there are no openings and the sentries are more than likely asleep, even with the abrasive whirring and clattering noise approaching the wall. The figure pulls back her grey cloak to reveal silver hair that does not show age, but wisdom, crowned with a tiara of golden gears. Draped on her shoulder is a small child. The young girl pretends to be asleep and clings to her mother tightly. Somewhat out of place from the mother’s beautiful light blue dress is a brown leather tool belt, which she searches through frantically with her free hand. She feels a clang against the rings on her fingers and relaxes as she pulls out a gold key with a series of gear shapes on the end of it.
To what is practically invisible to the naked eye, the mother finds a tiny notch in the wall, sticks the key in and turns it. A grumbling sound is heard as though a giant mechanical bear is awoken from a long hybernation and dust pours out in the shape of a rectangular doorway.
“They’re close, mother.” The little girl’s voice is not one of fear, it is one of fact. The whirring noise, like the sound of an angry charging nest of hornets, is now not more than a few yards away.
As soon as the door pushes out far enough, the woman slips in with her child, pulling the key out and the door closed behind her. The slam of the door is echoed by the slam of armored creatures behind it. Then the sound of clanking is heard as the dark beasts on the other side begin successfully climbing the wall. This would buy them time, but not enough.
The shimmering mother, now lost in the dense mist of Blowdon, sets down her daughter in a huff of exhaustion. The two-year-old girl looks about at the broken city in agitation, wearing a brown and red peasant dress that contrasts from her mother’s elegant attire. The only thing matching between the two are their blue-grey eyes and fierce determination. After the mother has caught her breath, she grasps the hand of her daughter and they run through the streets of Blowdon. Hardly visible through the steam that pours from the jagged brass buildings, the mother relies solely on memory and slightly on the blurred lights that line the cobbled roads. It is the dead of night and the city breathes steam like a death rattle.
“Where are we going?” asked the little girl with piercing eyes. Even with such little legs, she is able to keep up with her mother brimming with excitement and curiosity contrary to her mother’s fear. Being six hours past her bedtime only seemed to add to her spirit with no soporific effect.
“You’re going to see… a friend,” the mother struggled to phrase the sentence.
“My friend?”
“He will be. He’s Mommy’s old friend.”
While the little girl pondered how an old friend could be any fun, she didn’t notice that they had broken free of the steam induced fog.
The mother walked more slowly. They appeared to be in a desolate dirt field. She examined the ground and her daughter did the same. Any path in it would be impossible to see in the dark away from the main stretch of the city, except for…
“Look!” The little girl pointed at a small wooden cabin with a flickering candlelight in the window.
The mother looked back to see sparks shooting down the side of the wall like falling fireworks. The twilight monsters had made their way over. There was precious little time left. Picking up her small girl, she kissed her on both cheeks as she ran to the cabin.
“I’m going to have to go away,” she says staring into her daughter’s eyes while running brusquely.
“How long?” The sweet girl was on the verge of tears. The bad omens of the night were now verified.
“I don’t know, but my friend will take care of you. He’ll be like a father. A good father.” She had arrived at the door and sharply knocked on it.
“No,” the young one put her foot down, but off in the distance she could hear the whirring. She clung to her mother tightly.
“Don’t worry. They won’t get you.” The mother produced the golden key from her tool belt and held it up to her daughter. “Can you keep this safe for me?”
The little girl nodded with tears in her eyes. Her mother wiped the tears away.
“Don’t rust. I’ll see you again... He’ll help you find me. Goodbye.” The mother rapped on the door again and angry grumbling could be heard on the other side.
The little girl watched the door with curiosity as loud thumps began to make their way toward it. She looked back to ask her mother something, but she was gone.
“Who would come here?” The door opened to reveal a giant of a man with a salty face and a harsh glare. He looked around. “Some trick?”
The man then noticed the little girl standing there in terror, clutching something in her hands. He looked deep into her eyes and the glare on his face melted into a smile of recognition and then a grimace of panic. He looked about frantically and shouted into the cold night air.
“Claire! Claire!” There was nothing. The girl noticed that even the whirring noise had ceased. She did hear a little ticking noise that appeared to be coming from the giant’s chest.
To any two-year-old an average sized man might appear a giant, but this seven-foot broad shouldered veteran wearing a nightgown that looked like a circus tent was a good head above average by any standards. She couldn’t help but feel safe near him, even though she had no one else to turn to.
The giant looked down at the small girl shivering from losing her mother in a void of darkness. “What is your name?”
“Fae,” The little girl replied. She wasn’t sure the formality for a greeting under these circumstances, so she hugged him around his leg. The giant did not protest, so she felt it was the right move and it comforted her a little.
“My name is Wrench,” the giant stammered. “I bet you’re as tired as I am.”
Fae looked up at the giant with her softening blue-grey eyes to see his haggard scruffy face, to which she responded “No.”
“If you’re going to use that word a lot, then we’re going to be in trouble.”
Fae thought of what else to say and responded to a question typically asked of her in a normal meeting.
“I’m two-years-old,” she said.
“I figured.” With a sweeping motion of Wrench’s hand he ushered her to come in the cabin.
Fae scampered in looking for anything that might be fun to play with, only to find a large sofa and a dimly lit bedroom. At least the oddly crocheted blanket on the couch and the asymmetrical earth- tone pillows could make a fun fort. She quickly hopped on the couch to construct her fortress of solitude.
“Have you been... changed?” Wrench wasn’t sure how to ask the question as he was more concerned with the answer and what to do.
Fae did not respond, but quickly built her fort and laid down in it.
Wrench stuck his face in her fort and sniffed near her rear. Satisfied, he lifted his head out from under the blanket canopy. He then sniffed the air around himself, which was much less to his satisfaction.
“Did your mother say when she’d be back?” Wrench received no response. He became concerned that he may have hurt her feelings with the question, but when he peered back into the fort, he saw that she was asleep.
After a grumbling smirk of reluctance, Wrench quickly moved back to the front door. He grabbed a giant hammer hidden behind his makeshift coat rack and opened the solid oak door a crack. He peered out and listened carefully. Suddenly, he heard a buzzing. He shouldered open the door and brought the sledge hammer down with a slam on the cracked earth. There was silence. He lifted up his hammer and what remained underneath was little more than a splatter on the face of it. Could have been a bug or a bot, but it was now just a splotch with broken legs. Wrench wiped it off on his ridiculous nightgown and looked around. At the very least, it was his warning to anything lurking nearby. He went back inside and closed the door, bolted it, and then propped a chair up against it and sat in the chair with his hammer close by his side. Wrench let out a deep sigh as his chest clicked.
“It’s going to be a long...” He had no idea when it was all going to end or if it ever would. Even if Claire were to return for her daughter, she was obviously in a great deal of danger to leave Fae with him for even a couple of minutes. “She could have at least left a note.”
Wrench considered searching Fae for some note of explanation, but she was peacefully sleeping. Something he had not been able to do since the Rust set in.
