“I can’t believe you tried to kill me,” Violet said.
Eli pretended not to hear her. He had been doing this a lot since the encounter with the Toad had left him deaf in one ear. Given the confined space of the train car, and the fact that she spoke loud and clearly, she wasn’t buying it. That and she saw his left eye glance at her before flicking back toward the train window and the lush jungle speeding by.
Violet sat back, frustrated. The socket where her right used to be itched something fierce. She clenched her hands and crossed them in front of her.
Don’t go poking at it, she told herself, repeating it several times in case she forgot. You’ll only make it worse.
The NorEastern Empire spent much of its six year war against Crowndon getting its posterior kicked. Though masters of subterfuge and intelligence gathering, the NorEastern empire had neither the resources nor the military prowess to endure a long standing war, and by the time of the battle of the Divide, they were all but broken.
Today’s post is an excerpt from the novella “Where, No One Knows”, which I wrote for NaNoWriMo last year. In it, Pixie Sinclaire is tasked with infiltrating Where, No One Knows, a floating prison made out of three enormous interconnected ironclad warships. Her task: find and extract her former lover, Rigel Rinkenbach, before he unlocks the secret to creating Blackwood and gives it to the NorEastern Empire’s enemies.
Things don’t go as planned, however. For no sooner than Pixie arrives on the ship does a woman named Dougherty lead a mutiny, throwing the ship into chaos. She also wants Rinkenbach, for very different reasons. Pixie and Dougherty forge a fragile alliance, and come up with a plan to get Pixie onto the command ship where Rinkenbach is being held.
Pixie Sinclaire…where to begin? Most of her childhood was spent traveling the NorEastern countryside with her father, digging around in old caves and tombs. At the age of fourteen, her father was arrested and deported for grave robbing–ahem, sorry. “Unlicensed Archaeology”–leaving Pixie to fend for herself.
She was recruited into the North Eastern Subterfuge Society, where she served the Empire during the war with Crowndon as an agent provocateur, smuggling plans in and out of enemy territory and sabotaging Crowndon equipment.
It was during this time that she ran afoul of Sir Rigel Rinkenbach and, despite her better judgment, began a long and sordid relationship with him that ended due to a disagreement on whether or not Rigel should build weapons of mass destruction to end the war.
Hey, people have broken up over smaller things, right?
After the war, Pixie went to work for herself, setting up shop onLibertine’s Roost in Demon’s Eye bay, home of pirates, mercenaries, and alchemists without conscience.
Sir Rigel Rinkenbach is the most brilliant mind in the Imperial Triumvirate, and he knows it. He is also completely devoid of morals and has no time to waste on ethics. The only thing he cares about, if he can be said to care about anything, is the rapid advancement of civilization.
It was this attitude that got him ex-communicated from the Academic Alliance of Alchemists and Alliterators, and led to his estrangement from the equally brilliant Pixie Sinclaire, the only other person on the planet Rigel might consider having the potential to be his equal…someday. Perhaps. Maybe.
Captain la Pierre holds a grudging respect for Rinkenbach, but doesn’t necessarily trust him, and he certainly doesn’t like him…he’s a NorEasterman, after all. But he’s capable, and when you’re on the run for your life, that’s nearly the only thing that counts. He also knows the formula for Blackwood, the substance that makes the world go round. Rinkenbach has a taste for the finer things in life; gramophones, tea, and chess. He prefers a duelist’s stance when fighting, and uses a rapier. He possess the ability to think around problems, rather than through them (like Klaudhopper), but he realizes the importance of a blunt approach. A cunning strategist, la Pierre often laments not having Rinkenbach on his side during the war.
“I like your brand o’ thinkin, Rink. If not for the loopy machinations of cunning, lunatic minds such as your own, we’d have never gotten off the ground!” -Roderick la Pierre, Captain of the Pernicious Platitude, overheard during a train heist.
Klaus Klaudhopper is brash and quick to action. As the ship’s navigator, he has an obsession with getting where he’s going, when he wants to get there…which sometimes doesn’t take into consideration the safety of the crew, other air ships, or the people on the ground below.
As the youngest of the crew, Klaudhopper has seen the least action. He lied about his age to join the army (on a bet, no less, made by a fellow townsie who’s ultimate goal was simply to get Klaudhopper away so that his girlfriend would be left available), but alas, his enlistment came near the end of the war, which Admiral Roderick la Pierre unintentionally cut short, condemning Klaudhopper to an eight year contract guarding the governor’s crumpet stores.
His place on the crew is a tenuous one, as he blames la Pierre for ruining ‘his war.’ He sticks around, however, because la Pierre grants him a certain liberty and pays well. Not to mention, there’s really no other place to go.
Klaudhopper favors twin dueling revolvers given to him by Who, No-One-Knows, And Who, No-One-Asks, the Prime Surveyor of the Ephemeral Cartographers.
So, as I said a couple of days ago, I am a story-teller. Then I left a website with a bunch of pages and nothing on them. Then I got hits and started thinking…hmm. I better start telling some stories!
Today I bring you a small helping, one of the main anti-protagonists from a series of stories and, hopefully, videos, I plan to write, produce, and release here through YouTube.
I’m also considering ideas for a Vlog. Since I’m wrapping up a degree in Visual Effects and Motion Graphics, it would probably be conducive for this theoretical vlog to showcase an effect and go into detail the inspiration for the effect and how it was produced. Many of these effects will be obvious, but I think I will try to integrate some of them into the video, and leave the audience to figure out where the effect is, thus giving me some much-needed practice on my compositing skills while also giving the viewer something fun to do other than look at my ugly mug.
Without further ado, I give you Captain Roderick Beauchamp La Pierre, main anti-protagonist of “Blackwood Empire”!
“I’m teh King uth the Norf!”
Captain Roderick Beauchamp la Pierre: Former Admiral of the Crowndon aerial navy. Now a disgraced pirate. Lost almost his entire fleet of 42 ships in a desperate gamble that didn’t quite pan out during the Battle of the Divide. He was stripped of his command and exiled from the Northern Empire. He is now the captain of the Pernicious Platitude, a pirate vessel salvaged from the ship he went down on during the war.
Blackwood Empire 