Engineer's Empire

Engineer's Empire: Aether and Abyss: Chapter 8

Chapter 8

"Fool and two Kings," Chartner chuckled, his gravelly laugh echoing off the stonewalls.

"You're hiding cards," Leverson grumbled.

"No, you're just rubbish at this game," Chartner replied, scratching the black and gray stubble at his chin.

"Then why do we keep playing?" Leverson groaned.

"Because I'm great at it," Chartner said, sliding the small mound of pence and farthings across the table and putting out his cigar on the table's edge.

Legend had it that the noble Keep of Eastwicke had stood for three centuries as a bastion against the ancient darkness that the first Emperor had defeated so long ago. Many had fallen in the great war of champions against Desolace, a living god of destruction. Or so the story went. Who really pays attention to these things? Once Eastwicke Keep had been home to some of the greatest warriors the world had ever seen. Now it was home to the tired and bored. And Chartner. Chartner, however, seemed to be having a great time.

Some things will grow anywhere, the old saying goes.

The keep's watch towers looked out over The Wastes, endless miles of twisted metal and barren wasteland, which gave all of the soldiers the creeps no matter how long they were stationed at Eastwicke. Thus most tried to ignore it to the best of their ability. What had been there before Wastes was lost to the sands of time. Supposedly, a great empire had stood there ages ago, and a great darkness had destroyed it. The same darkness that Emperor Marcus and his heroes drove back to create the Promethean Empire.

Apparently, once upon a time, being stationed at the Keep of Eastwicke was considered a great honor. This is what the officers kept assuring the new recruits when they arrived. Chartner would repeat these words with pride to his friends back home. The other hale and hearty soldiers of Eastwicke would nod and roll their eyes when the officers weren't looking. Others would already be off napping by this point. Everyone knew Eastwicke was the end of the world, and the most boring assignment you could have in the Empire. It was great for naps, and not much else. Besides smoking, but that is a terrible habit that should not be encouraged. Unless you're Chartner, in which case, what else have you got?

A blue light had begun glowing from within The Wastes. That night, the soldiers saw bolts of blue lightning flash amidst the ruins of the Wastes. This was a cause of shock and bewilderment to all of the soldiers of Eastwicke. Nothing existed in The Wastes.

The impressively bored garrison of Eastwicke had always kept themselves busy with inventing strange new hobbies. Boggs had taken up pedigree rat breeding. So far, he was the only one who could tell the difference. Leverson had taken up raising cats, mostly to let them loose after the rats and watch Boggs cry. Others had taken up knife throwing, throwing rocks at Boggs' rats, shooting tin cans, playing cards, telling ghost stories or guessing why there were even still soldiers garrisoned at Eastwicke. Nothing ever happened there. Ever.

Largely their official duties consisted of chasing off scientists and tinkerers who became a nuisance. They would often sneak in, trying to gather pieces of old, broken metal for their projects. Most of the time however, the soldiers just left them alone and watched to make sure they didn't hurt themselves. The soldiers were also happy to look the other way if the tinkerers came with a few coins in hand.

But now, all of this had changed. Something had happened. This meant they needed to file a report. As no report of any importance had been filed in over a century, some debate ensued.

"Where are the report forms?" Leverson asked. Chartner scratched his head at this. He rummaged through a few drawers in the office that had officially been re-titled the Cot Room, as there was a cot in it. Being the Western most frontier in Bellingrath, and named Eastwicke, the soldiers had decided that was the end of their responsibilities for creativity. The Cot Room was largely there for taking naps, as was most of the rest of the keep.