Technomancer: Birth of a Goddess

Chapter 16 – The City of Steam

Emily sits up groggily in bed and pulls The Clock out from under her pillow.

12:15 am… oh yeah, I was asleep at this time.

She tucks The Clock under her pillow again and lies back down while opening the system. The top of the window has once again split, now containing three sections instead of two. First, Emily opens her new skill.

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[Overdrive (active)]

[Cost:] Variable Machina

A basic ability of mechanics to utilise machina to improve the performance of machines at the cost of the machine’s lifespan. Depends on the mechanic’s stage, the amount of machina used, and the size and grade of the machine.

-Grants variable % increase to machine’s output.

-Damages the machine proportionally to the improvement of performance.

_____

Emily clicks her tongue and grumbles:

“Tsk, what a vague description, it basically gave me no new information.”

To distract from her disappointment, she opens the new blueprints tab hoping for better news.

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[Blueprints]

Tier 1:

-Calypso’s Heart

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Tiers? This is new.

She pulls up the information of the new term and blueprint at the same time.

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[Technology Tiers]

As mechanics improve their skills, they must also improve their technology to fit. Different types of technology are separated into tiers according to their level of advancement and range of use. Most technologies can only be manufactured by mechanics of the appropriate stage.

Tier 1:

-Steam power

Tier 2:

-Electrical power

Tier 3:

-Electromagnetism

Tier 4:

???

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[Calypso’s Heart]

[Type:] Steam Engine

[Tier:] 1

[Rank:] E

[Description:] A large steam engine for the airship Calypso. Optimised to produce the maximum steam possible while maintaining a low weight and coal consumption.

[Effect:] When activated, generates a large quantity of steam and converts a portion of the steam into kinetic energy.

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It seems tiers one to three don’t require being the appropriate stage to produce them, since I made an electromagnetic device before I even awakened. Tier and rank don’t seem directly linked either, since the tier one steam engine isn’t F-rank. I should be able to get the blueprint of The Clock if I scan it, considering I made it, right?

Emily reaches her hand under her pillow and grabs The Clock. She shuts her eyes and lets her machina flow into it but feels a repulsive force blocking her. Opening her eyes with a frown she checks the new system message that appears.

_____

Attempting machina scan.

[Error, item tier too high! Scan failed!]

_____

“Tsk!” She clicks her tongue and lets go of The Clock.

I guess the universe’s interference was strong enough to raise its tier to a point that I can’t fully understand it anymore. I probably shouldn’t ever use Overdrive on it in case I damage it and can’t repair it.

Emily yawns and settles down to go to sleep.

I think that’s all I can get from this. Shame - I don’t think I’ll be able to make a copy of the engine to complete my stage progression requirement since it’s so big, but at least I know I should be able to find and create something of E-rank with my current skills.

She falls asleep with a contented smile on her face.

***

The next day passes the same the second time around. However, Emily goes to sleep early in preparation for her arrival at Chroni City the next day. On her third morning on the ship, Emily wakes at 6 am and climbs out of bed. She throws on a fresh shirt and trousers, leaving her robes on top of the open case on her bed, before heading out of the crew quarters to the nearby bathroom with her toothbrush and a comb.

On her way through the corridor, she runs into Angela coming back in the opposite direction.

“Oh, hey kid, you’re up early!”

“Yeah, I have a few things I need to go over before we arrive.”

“Fair play, if you want to see the city from the sky before we land you should join us in the bridge at around 7:45.”

“Got it, I’ll see you then.”

“See ya!”

Emily smiles as she continues towards the bathroom. In her time on the ship, she has talked to Angela and Anton the most, becoming friendly with the two due to their easy-going natures and poorly veiled distaste for nobility. Entering the bathroom, she locks the door behind her and then brushes her teeth and hair, glad that whoever packed her bag must have known there would be no showers on board, and included dry shampoo amongst her things.

When she asked, Anton had explained to her that Calypso is mostly used as a cargo ship, and usually takes trips that require stopping once every two or three days, so a shower was considered a waste of water, unlike on nobles’ personal ships and long-flight public passenger ships.

Finishing up in the bathroom, Emily returns to her room. She puts on her robe, and sits down on her bed, staring at her suitcase. She pulls out the three important items and inspects them. The crest is a simple metal brooch with dark green leaves and two intertwined silver roots, identical to the crest Diego wore on his robes. After looking at it closely, Emily finds nothing interesting about it and secures it to the inside of her robes just in case it’s needed when she arrives.

Next, she looks at the communication crystal. It’s a small, five-centimetre tall, hazy purple hexagonal gem with several runes engraved around it. Rotating it in her hands she sees twelve runes in total, eight of them unique, whilst a few are repeated. The inside follows a similar pattern to the lightning crystals, being almost completely opaque in the centre and increasing in transparency towards the outside. Emily decides against injecting any mana into it for fear of activating it. She places it into a convenient pocket inside her robes.

The last item is a small piece of paper with a short list written in neat handwriting:

Required courses:

Basic Etiquette

Basic Geopolitics

Basic-Advanced Magic Theory

Basic-Advanced Magic Combat

Basic-Intermediate Maths

Basic English

Any other courses may be chosen at your discretion.

Try to attain results as high as possible on all tests for the honour of the family and always introduce yourself as Emily Coldstone of house Mandrago.

Hmm, it’s a lot shorter than I expected it to be. Either they expect each of these to take a lot of time or they expect me to take a lot of extra courses. Either way, if it gives me useful skills, I’m happy to follow their education plan for now.

Emily folds up the list and tucks it into the same pocket as the communication crystal, then checks the time. Seeing it’s 6:35, she decides to meditate, and then head to the bridge before landing.

***

At exactly 7:40 Emily opens her eyes and stands up. Taking her suitcase with her, she excitedly walks towards the bridge.

I wonder what Chroni City will look like. It can’t be that different to Eimdon right?

Anton and Angela have refused to say anything more than ‘Wait and see’ no matter how many times Emily has asked.

Well, I’ve waited. I guess now I’ll see!

She quickly arrives at the bridge and steps through the doorway, looking towards the glass wall expectantly. The sight before her eyes instantly takes her breath away. She walks over and stands against the glass in awe.

After her first day on the bridge, Emily has spent the rest of her time between her room and the mess hall, not bothering to look outside. Now the familiar landscape of sand she grew up with is nowhere to be seen. The land stretching out below her is covered in a delicate mix of green and yellow grass, with shrubs and the occasional tree dotted throughout. The centre of this new scenery is dominated by a thriving metropolis, spanning several hundred kilometres with metal and steam.

Surrounding the city is a giant behemoth of a wall, standing at over a hundred metres tall with dozens of large gatehouses dispersed along its length. Inside, the city spans several levels of elevation, at some points reaching above the wall, with buildings and walkways intertwined in a dizzying mix. Thousands of smokestacks stand tall across the scenery, releasing billowing plumes of steam into the air and forming an ethereal, ever-shifting mist that blankets the lower levels. Spreading through every nook and cranny of the city, Emily sees tiny, ant like people bustling through crowds, and several large fast-moving machines carrying more of them from place to place.

On the closest side of the wall, Emily sees a familiar-looking airship dock, with a plethora of openings across the wall holding gears and tracks. Several dozen airships sit on the tracks, leaving or entering the city and Emily sees more of them floating in the sky above.

She notices a winding rail network connected to the docks, spanning one of the topmost layers of the city, with several elegant steam trains racing along at high speeds. Following a train with her eyes, tracing its path towards the centre of the city, Emily sees the two most impressive buildings she’s ever seen claiming the core of the capital as their own.

The first is a massive palace, carved from metal and stone, with several large twisting spires stretching up into the clouds. The white walls, with silver detailing, draw a stark contrast to the dark colours spread through the rest of the city. At numerous points around the palace hang large flags, only just visible from Calypso, displaying the crest of the Modo Kingdom’s royal family. Emily recognises the crest from a description Herber gave her a few years ago - a black oak with two thorny roses twisting up its trunk, one red and one white.

The second building is a large black and silver dome standing near the palace. The dome reaches from the bottom of the city to twice the height of the tallest normal building. Walkways connect to it at a few points, and there are two train stations attached. Strangely, even though there isn’t a single smokestack on top of it, the hazy mist sits several times thicker around its base.

Emily is pulled out of her wonder by Anton speaking behind her.

“This is why we refused to tell you; words really don’t do it justice.”

She turns around and sees everyone in the room watching her reaction with a grin. She belatedly notices that the night crew are still piloting, with Anton and Angela standing against the back wall watching. Emily blushes and looks back towards the city as the ship slowly starts losing altitude.

“Yes, it’s very impressive. You still could’ve told me a bit though…”

Angela and Anton both chuckle at her grumbling but choose not to say anything else. Watching the dock’s openings slowly grow closer, Emily asks the crew a question.

“How do you know which opening to go to and that there will be room for your ship?”

“When we’re doing runs for our sponsor, like this one, they deal with the communication, and we get told where to go in advance. As for normal trips, you saw all those ships hovering just outside the city, right?” Anton responds to her.

“Yeah.”

“We have to do what they’re doing, sit outside and use small drones to deliver messages and ask for permission to land.”

“Don’t you risk running out of fuel?”

“It’s a general rule to always plan to be held up for a day outside your destination and carry enough fuel for that. If not, you can always land nearby, but you run the risk of beast attacks, so most people are careful to avoid that happening.”

Emily shivers at the thought, remembering hiding from sand stalkers, when she was seven, after they entered the slums, and other assaults from worse beasts she’d rather not remember. She’ll never forget the feeling of helplessness as she listened to, and watched, children and adults alike being ripped apart after failing to escape their clutches.

As Emily dwells on the past, Calypso lands on one of the geared tracks and starts rotating around to face away from the city. The ship locks into place after rotating one hundred and eighty degrees and stops. After waiting for a few moments and noticing the track under the ship not moving, Emily turns around and raises an eyebrow at Anton.

“We need to let the steam out of the balloon before moving in. Let’s go and wait by the hatch, your family will have sent someone to collect you and it’s best not to keep them waiting.”

Emily nods and follows him out into the corridor, still slightly uncomfortable with the Mandrago family being referred to as her family.

“It was nice meeting you, kid. Good luck in the big city!” Angela calls after her with a grin.

“Thanks, fly safe!” Emily waves goodbye to the crew.

As they move through the ship, she feels it shake and hears a low grinding hum from the tracks below, signalling the ending of her time on board. They quickly reach the ship’s hatch and wait for the movement to stop.

“Well, it was nice transporting you. I have to say, you are probably the best company I’ve ever met from a noble house. Good luck in Chroni and look for us if you ever need to travel again,” Anton says with a smile as he offers his hand.

“Thanks, I’ll be sure to look for you if I can.” Emily shakes his hand and turns to leave the ship.

Anton pulls a lever on the wall as the vibrations stop, and the hatch opens, dropping steps to the floor. Emily steps out of the ship and sees a girl waiting for her, wearing black robes with white accents.

She looks to be around the same age as Emily, maybe slightly older, with long curly brown hair, delicate hazel eyes and lightly tanned skin. Her robes bear a crest with a single silver-stemmed white lily and flow loosely around her petite frame. She smiles widely as they make eye contact, causing Emily to blush.

Pretty.