Steam Age: Titan Project (Steampunk in Space Trilogy)

Chapter 1: Willow's Tavern

Hope. That was what the stranger had tucked away in his coat. Hope that he could one day look towards the stars and dream again of traveling into the heavens. Hope that he could finally find some peace and forgive himself. Hope that not everyone he had cherished left him behind in this world. The greatest gift to mankind had been left in his care- along with its creator. And now, they were gone. He failed his duty, and after ten years of being haunted by this memory, he managed to find hope. It came in the form of a small, crumpled letter. He clenched his pocket, hoping the moisture could not reach it until he had delivered the message. It was a bit of a trek to his destination, but the weight that the message carried was far heavier than anything mother nature could throw at him.

Very seldom does rain pour as it did that night. It was not a mere storm, but more like a monsoon. Large dirt paths became torrential streams of water, mud, and pebbles. The trees in the surrounding area were bent downwards under the sheer weight of the water gathering in their foliage. The lightning would make short moments in time appear as day, but soon afterwards the skies would darken as once before. Below the ragged cliffs, the ocean raged, as if nature itself were upset, as if Poseidon himself was distraught.  It was this kind of night that heralded the arrival of this completely covered stranger to the small tavern of Willow's Bay.

The tavern's door swung open as large bolt of lightning crashed in the distance. The stranger entered the bar as those taking shelter from the weather turned to look. He was wearing an old sailor's hat, black watertight boots, and thick brown pants, with a tattered, military style coat that ran down to his knees. The only information that one could gather from this stranger was that he was either a disgraced member of the armed forces or a criminal. This conclusion can be drawn from the fact that the left sleeve of the stranger's jacket bore the insignia of the Euro-American Trade Alliance, which one only needs to know the incidents that occurred nearly a decade ago to understand what weight this insignia bore. If this stranger had not stolen the jacket off some poor soul, then he truly was a member of the E.A.T.A.

The room was dimly lit; candles placed on a few tables, with small lanterns nailed on the sides of the wooden posts that were holding up the ceiling. The ceiling was somewhat low, with an overhead bar that stretched the whole length of the right side of the tavern. There were a few men seated separately at the bar, and a few people situated at different tables throughout the small room. Rickety steps in the corner of the tavern led up to the second floor. Most of the wood that made up the tavern consisted of small holes of ongoing termite damage. The boards of the floor were warped and loose, making a creak with every step. In the very back corner of the bar, underneath the steps, sat a man in silence, with one small candle on his table to light its surroundings.

As customers of the bar watched the stranger tread across the room, they found it impossible not to glance the other way for fear of being called out by the man. He walked with a small limp on his right leg to the back corner of the tavern, saying a word to no one. Everyone surmised that this stranger somehow knew the man sitting at the back of the tavern; a man almost as mysterious as the stranger himself. The man in the corner, who had only revealed his name to be Boiler, had been to the tavern on and off for the past seven years, but always sitting in the back corner with a large trench coat on and a hood over his head. What the stranger could want with him was an even larger mystery. 

"Well now, what do we have here? Looks like a poor soul trying to drown his memories and forget his past. How sad a story you must have to say...huh? What be you into these days Boiler?" The stranger just stood there as Boiler proceeded to brood over his pint. Eventually Boiler looked up to see who was speaking to him.

"Well now, I thought I would never be seeing the likes of you again...but please, sit down old friend! What are you up to nowadays? By the looks of it, you're only two bad deals away from my position."