It has been over a year since we last came to N’Aurelia. How I hate this dreadful swamp. The Baroness insisted, though, so I am obliged to be here at her side, so to speak. And to return in August of all months…
If only Miss Tagore could have accompanied us across the sea. She has for the most part evaded the long, transatlantic voyages we’ve made. I am not resentful. I miss her humor and I hate to admit, her chaotic demeanor.
Just the same, Miss Tagore DID lose the object, the Baroness is currently searching for, deep in the fetid murk of N’Aurelia’s airfield. It fell from the top of this very mast, I’m told, along with a deeply corrupt Alderman of the jungle city-state.
Pool looked up at the faceted girth of Baba Yaga’s Hut, the private airship belonging to the Baroness. It luckily was directly between him and the haze-shrouded sun. The light always had a muted quality from the ever present humidity. Ominous cumulus clouds drifted by in the distance moving slowly west to east from the jungle toward the sea.
The distance from the top of the mast to the ground would surely kill a man. Pool wasn’t certain if a watery impact would to the same. Miss Tagore had been fairly certain the Alderman was dead.
All of this just so we can go to the Black Forest and talk to some strange woodland creatures. I am absolutely loyal to the Baroness, but cannot always see what strange reasoning drives her.
Work in progress. Mistakes and misspellings are present. This is a very rough draft. Copyright 2021 Ion Fyr
#steampunk #scifi #fantasy
Ion Fyr 