Artifact: Steam Driver

Designation: Industrial Magitech

Particulars: Touted as the beginning of the Dwarven industrial revolution for over centuries running, this artifact heralded the adoption of machinery into the magitech discipline. It has undergone several iterations and redesigns according to the prevailing needs of the time, once it was used to extract water to prevent flooding in mining tunnels and then used to ferry ore from the extraction point to the smelters.

Steam drivers work by converting heat from firestones, deep wurm coal or other alchemical combustibles into motive power by boiling water. Water is then passed through narrow piping through a system of regulating pipes to drive turbines which transmit this motion to gears, pulleys and so forth. Nowadays, steam drivers it is used to power heavy duty steamlifts and craneage. Lighter iterations are under development for use on aerships.

Archive of Magitech Items, Artifacts and Relics, Zentrahl Institute for Magitech Studies

The genesis of civilizations began with them. Their beginnings were perhaps a primitive, humble lifestyle in the caves . Back then, conditions were harsher on the surface, monsters the likes of which the present day inhabitants could not begin to imagine crawled upon the earth, commanded the skies or swam in the waters. They were besieged on all sides, terror above and without. The children of fire and earth as their myths portrayed them had not yet grown into their bloodline heritage yet.

Were they alone? Surely not; there were others with them the dragons and the Fae as well as other lesser known elder races and one more, among others. One more race which reached the height of hubris and became a sandy stain upon the face of Eryth.

For the dragons and the Fae and other elder races that had the wisdom of eons behind their existence, the cave dwellers were just that― an ant on the ground. They didn’t deign to interact with the likes of them, perhaps the Fae did to some extent because of their mischief but that was neither here nor there.

For not much longer they grew into their heritage. First, they discovered the magic of fire and then they learnt to tame it to do their bidding to crawl their way from the bottom of the food chain to somewhere in the middle. But fire was only one third of the equation; the other two belonged to their mastery of the earth and their intellect.

It is from here that they made the first mundane weapons, graduating from sticks and stones to iron and other mundane metals. They hadn’t discovered how to empower them with magic yet. Magic was in the air yes, but they were rather conservative about its use, the mana in the air was simply too dense to be confined to small, everyday uses.

Nonetheless, the children of fire and earth still used it for massive undertakings. After living in caves for hundreds, mayhap even centuries, life below ground felt right. They might have had tools and weapons but even they knew their limits so instead of taking their chances with the beasts above, they went below.

And below, they built the first cities—the Dwarven Holds. Then came the birth of industry, education and culture, of written records, smithing and leatherworking, mining and architecture; it must have been a sight to behold an urban sprawl beneath the crust of Eryth. People who’d never been to any of the Dwarven Holds might have thought that living where the sun didn’t shine was a recipe for a drab way of living; they could never be more wrong.

It was they who first discovered the use of crystals, first Lux crystals which sustained vast underground forests of flora and fauna like the sky above would. The rise and fall of magical currents, the leylines, beneath the ground dictated the cycles of light and darkness as mana inundated those crystals during determinate periods. Some were long and some short but the frequency was never off allowing them to govern their seasons beneath the ground. And that is how they were able to, with some success, sustain their growing populations…for a while.

Their study of crystals is what propelled them towards rune craft in latter years. Whether it was a stroke of luck or their diligence, they learnt how to stabilize the mana in the air for their uses. Progress was slow going but they were the most patient of peoples otherwise they wouldn’t have been half the craftsmen they were known to be.

When they finally unlocked the secret of crystals and learnt to simulate different attributes through a written script, their civilization jumped forward once more and thus entered the edge of sophisticated magics and machinery. The wheel was already old news at this point but with rune craft, came the faster means of getting around their already bustling cities and more were getting built as the years went by.

They learnt to imbue the magic into every facet of their lives making everything easier. With that out of the way they could concentrate on what they loved most; crafting and later ale brewing. Productivity had gotten to the point they had more time than they knew what to do with.

At some point in time, their might and magic were able to contend with the monsters above and they were not ones to shy away from sharing the goodness of what they had. And there just so happened to be another race developing parallel to them though with difficulty. But contact with the dwellers from the subterranean changed their fortunes immensely.

What little they had was multiplied exponentially outpacing perhaps that of their benefactors just under a couple hundred years. Then things began to go wrong. They were warned that progress would take time but no, their paranoia got the better of them and they went hurtling towards a magitechnological oblivion even their neighbours were cautious of using. Like a candle burning too bright, it was only a matter of time.

And when it finally went out from being burnt on both ends, even the dwellers of the deep felt it. The cataclysm that rewrote geography, moved land masses, dried out forests and sunk cities into the sands…no survivors lived to tell the tale. Only one race knew their story, the others…they were just observers, regarding the rise and fall of a civilization like a passing wind.

To ensure that such a thing would never happen again; some secrets were sequestered away, locked beneath the darkest reaches where only deep wurms would dwell, where rivers of lava flowed, where things beyond people’s nightmares prowled. To ensure that it would stay that way, the Seekers, the Keepers and the Blackguard were formed.

The Seekers were explorers and adventurers who made it their mandate to collect and document any magitech and monsters that might have survived the fallout. Later, their mission expanded to include charting of their underground world.

The Keepers’ duty was to preserve the history of what was and to make sure if it ever saw any use at all, it would be after they’d ensured that it was safe. Finally, the Blackguard were there to root out any and all signs of that which bordered development of runaway magitech; to watch from the shadows and to warn if any other race came close to crossing the line.

Time went by, all was good but rumors grew; rumours that they were hoarders of everything good, that they were selfish and ruthless. Compared to the guilt of having a hand in the self-annihilation of an entire civilization whose legacy was a giant bowl of sand smack in the middle of a continent such words could scant compare. Better to be called the Underminers than to let the world go to the Pits again; and that was the burden of the dwarves.

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Would Arthur have known perhaps his sentiments would have followed a similar vein. It would have struck a chord for him especially when he was coming from a world that was always a button away from a nuclear winter or already living with the consequences of technology growing too fast that the rest of nature was left playing catch up.

If he’d understood then, he would have known that his being on the Keeper’s watchlist and not the Blackguard’s Blacklist meant that there would not have been any repercussions ―long as his use of magitech was within certain parameters. The magical ordinance might have raised some major red flags sure, but the Triad was not one known for knee jerk reactions.

However, if his watchers had to again review their appraisal of his abilities; Arthur would be moved to the greylist. Especially when the first report and bounty request was sent back to the Keeper’s citadel by none other than [Seeker] Holly Embersteel. The same Seeker who had retrieved a scrying crystal with the record of an undocumented system of magitech propulsion and a mysterious weapon from the mercenaries who happened to be in the area.

For a while she had been awaiting further orders in her Skidbladnir or Skid as the younger magitech crafters down at headquarters loved to call it. They were always hip and full of energy and the bane of every field operative. They had a tendency to want to pack the craft full of untested artifacts that just barely rolled off the forges; as though the [Seeker] was going out to fight the things from the deep. It seemed that the upper echelon would take a while with their deliberation but until then, Holly would just sit tight in her reconnaissance vessel.

Holly’s Skid was cyclopoid shaped, taking the inspiration for its form from a type of crustacean that inhabited aquatic subterranean habitats. Its rust brown body was a bisected ellipsoid, curved above and flat below and it was wider at the front and tapered towards the back. It was the size of a tinkers’ wagon and provided everything a [Seeker] would need for long missions.

Made from animus-steel, the Skidbladnir could alter its shape to a degree to navigate tight spaces. It seemed well adapted as a fossorial and amphibious vehicle like the creatures it was modeled after. Its propulsion system was not for Holly to know because she was merely a [Seeker]―only a [Sentinel] had that kind of clearance. But as long as it got her where she wanted to go she didn't mind.

Its choice of weapons were a pair of retractable arms that possessed augers and steam driven piles. The aforementioned could pierce through the hard shells, carapaces or scales of the creatures that lurked around the tunnels. Long range arsenal was [Pyro Bolt], [Cryo Lance] and artillery spells like mana seekers and enchanted bolts shot from between the two arms for those creatures deemed dangerous to get close to.

The Skid had no visible windows with which to view the outside but animus steel could be many things. She could see straight through the hull of her craft like one-way glass. And as of then, she was just holding position inside the same tunnel that the Stormbreaker had passed through.

Thirty parquarts later and still no response from the armacus , she decided that she wanted to freshen up. She unfastened her boots in the one seater cockpit and walked into the compact living quarters containing a bed, shower and toilet cubicle and a small kitchen counter.

The Skid was currently sitting in a river which gave her free reign of all the water she could use. It had been a while since she'd had a proper bath too. As the warm water washed away the grime from her body, she touched the tender and pale areas of her body that had gotten bruised during a one versus many fight from the previous night.

No matter how enchanted her wurmskin leathers were against piercing damage, they weren't made to take heavy hits on repeatedly. She was an agility type not a strength type like the males of her race.

That was a misconception of the top dwellers that dwarven women were like the men, wide and squat as barrels. The only thing wide on her was her hips. She was lithe, had well-toned muscles and an average build which was suitable for intelligence operatives.

If the males were the mallets, the females were cross pein hammers; they were the ones you needed when you wanted something done with finesse. The men were terrible at that kind of thing unless a forge or brute force was required.

Her shower came to an abrupt end when her armacus buzzed from where she'd placed it on the bed. She emerged from the shower cubicle, hair still plastered to her scalp and feet treading water as she picked up the artifact. There was a [Message] for her.

"[Citadel]; New orders to return to the Dwarven Hold immediately for further debriefing. End of Message spell.”

'Huh, that was short' she scowled. 'Maybe something's changed after that scrying crystal of the tallfolk putting down a deep wurm? By Ustrina's fiery bosom, my report must've been the stuff of stories...maybe they don't believe me?'

She’d had the contents of the scrying crystal sent ahead by the relay in her craft. It often took a while because the transmission had to be bounced around outposts in the subterranean tunnels. That said, sometimes the upper echelons were people who were impossible to please but work was work.

She dried her cherry red hair and wiped down her body before she got fresher innerwear and leathers. She winced at the bruising at the back of her ribs. Her stash of potions and tinctures was more than adequate, but the ache was nothing compared to the gains she might get...maybe [ Endurance], or [Resilient Skin] if she was lucky.

Turning to her mirror, she tousled her bangs away from her face and smiled at her freckles like a giddy girl; by Eog she was still that girl. Round face, supple cheeks, pouty pink lips and brown irises; definitely no square jaw and no beard in sight.

Dwarven women were still women; what good would a beard do on top of their already intensive hair care? That would've made them bad infiltrators if they couldn't blend in like the short women or human girls.

Holly stole away into the cockpit and secured herself into the harnesses. She checked that the propulsion system was still warm, and then everything from cooling and air supply as well as the mana level of the tertherite crystal driver that powered her Skidbladnir; all was good.

Now she just had to get to the old dwarven tunnels, the Underways that their forefathers built in the eons before. Some were barely passable having stood against the vagaries of time and movements of the earth below.

They were relatively safe if you didn't run into trolls or swarms of rock mites. Rock mites her skid could shrug off since animus metal repulsed them. Maybe it was an innate characteristic of the metal because they pulled it from the bodies of deepwurms? Their craft-researchers were still uncovering the things it could do. If she ran into a troll, she just hoped that a beam of heat ray would be enough to dissuade them from opening their craft like a clam.

Firing up the propulsion system the skid levitated parting the water from its undercarriage as six insectile landing struts with clawed ends receded into its belly. Holly pushed the two yokes on either side of her seat forward and the craft flitted off into the deep dark. No exhaust visible, no air movements;If Ascal were to have seen that, he would have discovered that he wasn't so far away from doing similar feats with his tellusphere.

The Skidbladnir had no lights to navigate below the surface. It actually had no need for them; Holly could see just fine through the one-way canopy of her craft. Everything was washed out in greyscale, colder areas were tinged blue, while warmer areas were tinged anything between yellow and red. If she wanted, she could overlay the flow of mana over the screen but that would sooner drain the craft’s mana source too; experimental magitech and all that.

Nevertheless, the skidbladnir was truly another marvel of dwarven magical engineering. Using lights underground was just asking to provoke any of the denizens that inhabited these spaces; the only way to navigate was by heat, barely audible sound and mana.

Periodic pulses from her craft’s main crystal unit sounded all clear on the scrying slate as it showed the topographic layout of the tunnel. Beyond communication and scrying, telepsychic crystals could be inscribed with rune craft to do a menagerie of other functions like harmonizing several magitech systems with a terminal.

‘No trolls…good.’ She relaxed the tension in her muscles. She didn’t want to get into a battle if she could help it, simply content to let the scenery pass her by. But she remained alert, auger and pile drivers poised in front of her like a scorpion’s pincers. Terra scorpions were another hard shelled bastard that she’d have to watch out for; she crinkled her lips in disgust; the things made her stomach clench. They smelt like something you didn't want to find at the bottom of your boot sole when you squashed them. They were second only to shroom gnats in terms of stink levels.

Holly would have rather fought a swarm of rock mites any day instead of those creatures who were disguised like the rocks around them. It didn’t help that they had no heat signature and their mana signatures were hard to pick out from the ambient mana of Ter that prevailed underground.

Luck seemed to be on her side for once. She’d made it to the junction of the underground river beneath Aldmoor and now for her descent into the Underways. She maneuvered the Skid to a nondescript part of the cavern wall. A series of timed bursts of telepsychic pulses hit the walls, agitating crystals inset into the stony façade. The minute vibrations were then parsed to activate stone shaping runes.

The wall peeled away like a curtain of sand and the dwarven woman glided the craft into the opening. The wall behind her Skid rose up again showing no signs of disturbance from her passage; from there it was a straight shot to the Underways.

Leagues rolled by, scenery changed from bare stone to reinforced ancient tunnels. Flora and fauna began to show themselves; small bioluminescent critters and moss that shone, fungal outgrowths and bracket ferns waving in the nonexistent breeze of the caves. Contrary to how they looked, those ferns were closer to anemones and could capture anything that got close.

“By Eog’s beard, It’s going to take forever just to get home; I hope Seria is on her best behavior ,” she murmured as she thought fondly of her niece. It had been three months—three whole months above ground, saddled with the assignment. Her orders were to shadow and observe.

From her Dwarven Hold, where the Triad’s Citadel was stationed above ground, was a nundine-long trip at a decent clip, five she was willing to push the Skid to its limits. At best she would just deplete her tertherite crystal ; it was two weeks if she wanted to chance the journey by foot.

Nonetheless dwarven-made crafts were made to adapt to the Underneath. It was their pride to make sure that happened and if she left it for a while, near a leyline, she’d find the tertherite core recharged within a day.

Holly’s recent posting had come out of the aether after their magical detectors picked an anomalous reading of a self-sustaining magical reaction. It just so happened she was the nearest Seeker and therefore she had drawn the shortest straw of all. Added to that, they were short-staffed because most of the Keeper’s Rangers, Seekers and Sentinels were busy chasing leads concerning a certain dungeon incident and troublesome void mages as well.

The magical detectors, thaumoseismographs, a mouthful of a term, were surreptitiously placed around some areas of the top dwellers’ towns and cities to detect mana waves much like one would detect seismic waves in the ground. One reading from the magical instrument from Aldmoor had her bundled into the nearest Skid and sent up to investigate. Holly was sure that she would be assigned topside again, to find the mageling however far he had gone.

For the next few days, she passed her time in monotony, running on a Potion of Rejuvenation so that she could reach the Citadel in the shortest time possible. As a lone operative, she had to take the alchemical concoction; sleeping was not an option with no one else to keep watch. The sensors on her Skid could warn her outright, but every split casion was a hair breadth away from a death that could be avoided.

The creatures of the deep had never regressed in the eons their top dwelling counterparts devolved or evolved to use less mana as the thaumosphere stabilized. They were doing just fine using whatever amount they could scrounge up in their habitats and that made them very efficient at using it.

The closer she got to the Dwarven Hold, the more her sensors returned readings of mana signatures and seismic disturbances. They could either be monsters or mining rigs; she hoped it was the latter. Again, luck smiled her way. She passed an expanding mining post on the fifth day of her journey. As per regulations, she provided readings of her Skid’s sensors concerning all mana and seismic activities in the vicinity.

It did take a while to synchronize the telepsychic crystals from her crystals to the giant crab-like mining rig called the Krabbenwandlr which housed a mobile headquarters. It had docks for carrying mining walkers, supply containers and housing units for miners on its broad underside. Its walking struts, one easily as thick as her craft, were anchored to the ground as its pincers containing conical and helical augers enchanted for hardness and durability worked on an ore vein of deep iron.

“All clear,” the Dwarven foreman in charge communicated as the connection to her skid’s telepsychic crystal disconnected.

“You are welcome foreman.”

“Safe ‘journs Seeker.”

The runes on her mage slate blinked to show that she could now use it. It was thanks to the telepsychic crystal’s convenience that she didn’t have to walk out of her craft or open the canopy to a face full of dust and musty air—she simply didn’t have the gear for that. Even though her craft's sensors said the air was not that toxic at the drop of a hardhat, that could change— there was no need to risk it.