The Gears of Mercy

Illustration in progress

A Tale of Salorras — a novel of the Sickening Engine.

Mercy, manufactured, is still for sale. Ask only who set the price — and who was made to pay it.

Of This Telling

This is a work of fiction set in the world of Salorras, in the Era of the Third Moon, in and around the steam-shrouded capital of Braora. It is the story of a city poisoned by its own water, of the five strangers who stood between Skylorn and the fire, and of the woman who would have been crowned a hero for the crime she committed.

It is adapted from the adventure The Sickening Engine, and stands beside it as story, not as record. Like all Tales of Salorras, it is not canon: an authored telling, faithful to the world’s truths but free in its particulars.

Book I - The Price of Water — Prologue, and Chapters One through Ten. The theft in the south. The directress’s fall. Five roads to the Red Pepper Club. The wheel begins to turn.
Book II - The Rising Sickness — Chapters One through Nine. The night the dead stood up. An inspector’s bargain. The lion’s den of VitaMed. The road north, and the chained doors of the Cogwheel.
Book III - The Untangling — Chapters One through Thirteen. The halls of the dead wheel. The riddle of the builder. The singing at the crown. A promise kept at dusk — and a thread followed home, to a lamplit office where the truth was addressed to whoever found the body.
Book IV - Behind the Blinds — Chapters One through Nine, and an Epilogue. A huntsman keeps his hour on the Garden bridge. A miracle is audited before a king. A chase into the fog of Scarlett — and, far to the south, an empty cradle that was never about the sphere at all.

Dramatis Personae

The Company

Theodore Amias — a scoundrel of Skylorn; bastard son of House Larkin, raised by the alleys of Scotchmire
Edith Ainsworth — an armsman, late of Scalford; a smith’s daughter with her father’s greatsword
Alina Ainsworth — her elder sister; apostle of Aalokye, the Curer
Gabriel Vance — an elmaer minstrel, called the Bard of the Wind; more than he seems
Verendis Artem — an elmaer mage of Ylna’Anor, in the service of the Steamline Corporation

The Corporation

Electra Hawkes — elmaer directress of VitaMed, subsidiary of Steamcorp
Balarn Kala’Rin — her huntsman; once a tamer of horrors of Laernoctus
Shaira — his bonded beast, a dusk-wolf of the southern wilds
Octavius Overy — supreme director of Steamcorp
Thadeus Benavar — director of Wefaco; General Secretary of the Parliament of Braora
Virgil Ward — a brilliant young man
Curtis Lumberstone — aide to the directress
Gilivan Kiples — researcher; the directress’s most devoted
Siro Vordanis — shipmaster of the Rosseta

The Crown and the Guard

Everardus Tremaine II — King of Braora, of the legatee blood of the First Seven
Artemiel Thomlis — elmaer court magus; keeper of the arcane pillar
Milo Julian — elmaer inspector of the Legendary Guard
Leah Griffin — priestess of Aalokye; his beloved
Ocelar Torvings — captain of the First Brigade

The South

Vyisla Dorak’Elar — magewraith of the Arcanawrath; a daughter of the Hidden
Cremora Ryl’Zar — Supreme Mystic of the Arcanawrath
Bearlim Ker’Antar — Supreme Occultist of the Arcanawrath
Desmond Kasian — a dealer in curiosities, Araham Market

The Free Dragon Activists

Kyeldarun “Wyrmfellow” Stonekings — second of the Skylorn cell
Erosgan Lester — called the Conductor; a seller of tickets

The Dead

Durliazaranth — the Undying; a Pale dragon of the Era of Myths, whose quintessence outlived its flesh