Grain: New Machina; Second Great British Empire - Cloister of Science...

The doors were covered in gilt and stood tall and imposing in front of the women. The dark maple monstrosity in front of them made Amaretto shiver as she inspected them. Carvings of all kinds were displayed in the wood, most of them were strange symbols that Amaretto didn't understand. As she stared at the door she had a thought that seemed a little gruesome. She turned to her aunt.

“So what we are looking for is behind that door correct?”

Katherine turned from looking at the door to look at Johanna. Johanna made a mute nod. Katherine turned back to her god-daughter and shook her head in the affirmative as well. “That would seem to be the case.”

Amaretto frowned and then said, “What if there is a squad of goons on the other side of the door?”

Katherine raised an eyebrow. “A squad of goons?”

Amaretto nodded her head emphatically. “Yes, what if there was another set of those IronMen that we have been dealing with this whole time? What if they are waiting just inside the doors.”

Alice pointed her gun at the door. “You have your ring and I have my guns. I think we would be able to handle them.”

Amaretto shook her head. “No, that's not what I mean. What if there are more than what we can handle? What if we try to shoot our way in and there are just simply too many of them and they overwhelm us? What do we do then?”

Alice furrowed her eyebrows and then said, “Are you trying to think of a doomsday plan for all of us love? I mean, it sounds more like you are trying to prevent us from going thorough the door. If the Stone of Communication is on the other side of this door, we should be busting it down in order to make sure that we get what it is that we want.”

Amaretto shrugged. “I'm just saying, I don't really want to die at this moment in time.”

Alice was about to say something when Johanna placed a hand on her shoulder and said, “She is on strange soil, helping us do a strange deed, in strange times. It is no wonder that she would be concerned for herself and her aunt.”

Katherine smirked and started rooting around in her purse. “I might have something that will give us the upper hand, just let me...” She continued to root around her purse until finally she said, “I have it!” She looked at the others around her with a maniacal grin. “Just open the door and I will have at them. No need to worry, this is fool-proof.” Katherine still had her hand in her purse.

Amaretto pointed to the purse. “What are you hiding?”

“I'm not hiding anything,” her aunt said a little hurt. “I just think that the element of surprise will work better. This way, if they are truly watching us, which I doubt that they are, then I want what I have left to be a surprise.:

Amaretto rolled her eyes. “If that's what you think it is, then I won't stop you at all. Go ahead and just do it then.”

Katherine took a deep breath and then nodded her head. “All right then, open the doors.”

Alice took both of her pistols and aimed them at the door. Amaretto held up her ring just a little below her chest. Her breath was a little ragged from having to take out so many of the IronMen, but she was sure that her aunt would protect her. As if for a secondary precaution, she quickly thought in the back of her head, “Tempus!”

At first, it seemed as if he was reluctant with her and was not about to answer, but with some mental probing and poking, he eventually responded.

“What do you need then?” Tempus' voice was not cheery, but it was not overly welcome either.

“Are we going to survive this then?”

Tempus snorted. “What kind of question is that?”

Amaretto grumbled in the back of her head. “I need to know if I am going to survive this whole ordeal.”

Tempus paused for a minute before he answered. “I will say that there is no need to worry as you are not trying to kill yourself. As to how the natives shall react to you, you should be fine.”

“Did you just say that because I am no suicidal that...”

“Really, the IronMen are not all that bad, they just have no heart. If you find the Stone of Communication, then you have the first coordinate and we can move onto the next world.”

“So there is still stuff to do after all of this?”

“I told you that we need three,” began Tempus in a huff.

Amaretto cut him off. “I think Johanna is going to open the door, I will get back to you when I get the chance.” She nodded to Johanna who motioned Katherine into place, Katherine, with her hand still in her purse, moved forward to the door and then looked back at Alice. Alice once again positioned herself behind the door and then aimed her guns onto either side of Katherine.

With a mighty shove, Johanna swung the doors open and all four women charged into the room, Amaretto behind the other three with her hand extended so that she could use the ring if needed. Katherine charged into the room, letting a battle cry ululate through the room with a ferocity of an Amazon. She charged forwards into the face of a woman who was standing there with a look of surprise, and pulled her hand out from within the purse. Grasped firmly in her hands was a long silver chain, at the end of which a large medallion was hanging. It appeared to be made out of silver and when Amaretto got a better look at it, she thought it looked oddly like a seagull in the middle of a box.

Katherine shook the medallion at the strange woman and then screamed at the top of her lungs in her most ferocious and commanding voice that she could muster, “'Then Saul, who also is called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, "O full of all deceit and all fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness,will you not cease perverting the straight ways of the Lord? And now, indeed, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you shall be blind, not seeing the sun for a time.' Acts 13: 9-11.”

Amaretto was shocked. She had never heard anyone quote the bible before, but this was a little bit of a guilty pleasure for her as well. The woman who her aunt was standing in front of looked a little offended, as as she did nothing, Katherine shook the strange medallion again and began speaking at the top of her lungs again.

“I command you, unclean spirit, whoever you are, along with all your minions now attacking this servant, by the mysteries of the incarnation, passion, resurrection, and ascension, by the descent of the Holy Spirit, for judgment, that you tell me by some sign your name, and the day and hour of your departure. I command you, moreover, to obey me to the letter, I who am a minister despite my unworthiness; nor shall you be emboldened to harm in any way this creature or the bystanders, or any of their possessions!”

The woman gave Katherine a strange look and as she did so, Amaretto quickly looked around the room. There seemed to be a large poster bed across the room that was covered in gauze, and several sitting chairs, a small table and a large roaring fire. Other than that, there appeared to be nothing else in this room, which Amaretto thought looked more like a rather large bedroom with parlor than an evil torture chamber. She had almost wished for the evil villain's chamber for a minute there.

The woman looked like she was about to say something when Katherine shook her charm once more and said, “Silence Deamon!” The woman seemed taken aback and put a hand on her chest and Amaretto looked once again at the symbol that her aunt had in her hand. She squinted her eyes in thought for a moment and then it suddenly popped into her head.

“Wait a minute, that's,” Amaretto started when her Katherine cut her off with a large bellow.

“The power of Mazda compel thee!”

Amaretto felt like she wanted to smack herself in the forehead.

Grain: New Machina; Second Great British Empire - Cloister of Science...

I said that I was sorry about the last week and how I didn't seem to get anything done, so here is a small bit of what I wrote to make up for it:

The small group of women continued to run up the rest of the stairs, passing landing after landing that appeared to either go nowhere, or in some cases, contained a certain amount of certain death. The eighth landing had six IronMen waiting for them as they reached it. Johanna was the first to pull out her rapier and then slice through the first two of the IronMen that were there. From behind, Alice shot another IronMan as Amaretto quickly stumbled her way through the incantation once more to get rid of another one that was standing behind them as well.

Alice giggled as she pointed her gun at another IronMan and shot him. “This is ridiculous fun and I can't say that I am not enjoying it,” she remarked rather haphazardly.

Amaretto grunted as she moved past another dead IronMan on the floor. “I can say I've had more fun in a lot of places.” She then turned to her aunt and gave her a murderous glare. “I however don't recall anything about being killed being in the job description.”

Katherine made a mocking face and then said, “I could do with more whiskey at the moment, but you don't see me complaining about it.”

Amaretto was about to say something else when she heard Tempus shout in her head. “I think I have found it!” She was about to repeat it when she realized it was not the spell that she was looking for. She mentally chided herself and then replied to him.

“What are you talking about?”

Tempus' voice was giddy with excitement. “I've found the source of the coordinate. I think I found where the Stone of Communication is!”

Amaretto's eyes widened and she was about to respond when another IronMan clanked into view. She raised the ring at him and began her chant. By the time she was finished, she no longer felt guilty about doing it. Not that she had felt guilty in the first place, but she knew that somewhere, deep inside herself, there was something that abhorred the fact that these poor men had been transformed into metal abominations. She quickly skirted aside the IronMan she had just felled and quickly walked towards the next landing, following after everyone and Alice behind her.

“Where is it then?”

Tempus responded. “You have been blindly going up. On the next floor, the landing will lead off into a hallway. Take that hallway and follow it all the way to the end. I believe there you will find what it is that you are looking for.”

“So at the end of the ominous hallway? Isn't following Johanna enough?”

Amaretto heard Tempus almost frown in her head and then he said, “Why yes, I do think that it could be, but I am telling you right now that there is something else with that stone.”

Almost as if on cue, on the next landing, Johanna turned sharply to the right and into the long hallway that was there. There was a red carpet that was on the floor that was plush and as they walked on it, it retained their footprints. They continued down the hallway and as they did, Amaretto noticed that there were several paintings on the wall. The portraiture at first seemed rather needed. It was only after the first few portraits that Amaretto began to notice the differences. It wasn't that she thought of them as if they belonged in a fun house, they were just strange. Instead of the normal pictures of people sitting in chairs and standing next to bowls of fruit, the people stood in long and sumptuous gowns and amazing looking suits with cravats. The only change was the jewelry at first. From the necklaces to the earrings, to the rings on their fingers, there was a distinct difference in the shape and design of many of the pieces. Long sweeping styles that seemed to mimic art nouveau.

Long styles soon gave way to thinner and thinner people, until finally, Amaretto noticed that hey were not getting thinner, but they were in fact, replacing body parts with thin mechanical machines.

In fact, there was not much else to see but people with machine arms and legs and even in some cases, one woman had her throat replaced with a long thin metal casing. As Amaretto looked at all of the pictures, she began noticing that the names under the plates were all strange in the fact that all of them were doctors.

Amaretto was about to comment on it when another IronMan came around the corner in silence towards them. This one was a little different than the others that they had come across however. He was taller and a little bulkier in the shoulders. Instead of the traditional red cape that most of the other IronMen wore, he was dressed in a cape of deep velvet the color of a darkened sky. Amaretto looked at him with curiosity and as she did so Alice stepped forward.

“Don't worry. I have him.” She aimed her pistol and then fired directly into the center of the IronMan. As she did so the IronMan grunted and doubled over once struck. He staggered for a minute or two and then stood back up, clutching around the hole in his chest.

Amaretto looked a little shocked. “His heart didn't eject? Alice, his heart is still intact.”

Alice looked rather surprised herself as confusion swept across her face first and then soon was replaced with concern. “I shot him in the chest. I know I did, why didn't his heart eject like the others? He should be dead by now!”

“He's still walking towards us,” Amaretto said with an edge of panic in her voice. “He's not dying.”

Katherine spoke hurriedly at Amaretto, “Amaretto, use the damn ring!”

Amaretto jerked her hand up as she stumbled backwards over her own feet. “Voices of Ancients long ago past," Was all she could stutter when all of a sudden, the IronMan lurched forward at a sudden pace and threw himself at Amaretto and Alice. Both Amaretto and Alice shrieked. As the IronMan got closer, he reached out with his hands and sudden lines glistened from in-between his fingers as he reached out towards them. Amaretto looked at it and heard a sound much like fishing wire being tightened and she realized what was interlacing itself between the construct's hands.

Amaretto ducked to the side, not finishing her incantation as she ducked to the side. As she did, she bumped into Johanna who hit the ground with a groan. The IronMan jerked to the left and tried to grab hold of Alice. Alice shrieked in a manner most unbecoming of a woman and fired her pistols twice. Each shot went off the sides of the wall and the IronMan managed to dodge all of them. However, as She hit the wall on the fourth and final shot, a painting fell downwards and the IronMan lifted his hands upwards to protect himself. There was a loud sound like wires being pulled taught and then the painting fell between his hands. As it hit the wires between his fingers, the painting shredded into a thousand tiny little bits.

Alice gasped. Amaretto lifted her ring once more and began to try to chant, but Johanna was too quick for either of them and managed to use the rapier that she had been given to stab the IronMan repeatedly in the head. The strokes were sudden jabs, but she actually managed to get both of his eyes. The IronMan reached up to claw at his gauged out eyes and there was a sudden sound as the wires sliced directly into the automation's head. The IronMan fell to the floor and Johanna frowned at the body.

“I really feel that we should not be here,” Amaretto said as she turned to her aunt. “No where did you tell me that this could happen. I've almost died several times now!”

Katherine frowned and said, “The gift that is yours comes with a responsibility Amaretto. You can't just get rid of it because you want to.”

“Then why did you give it to me?”

“Would you believe that I didn't realize what I was giving you?” Katherine shrugged her shoulders.

Amaretto grimaced and then said, “Actually, yes. I can totally believe that.”

Katherine growled something under her breath and said nothing afterward. Johanna pointed down the hallway. “I can feel it. The Stone is over there.”

Amaretto looked at where Johanna was pointing and all but crowed. “There's a door! I can finally get this over with!”

Katherine hissed at Amaretto. “That's not nice!”

Amaretto shrugged off her aunt's words and began running towards the door. AS she did so, she could only think of how fast this whole ordeal could be over. She Almost tripped over the hem of her dress and continued on. It was almost too much excitement and she almost didn't hear Alice when she yelled out. Amaretto spun her head around to look at Alice quizzically. As she did, she saw Alice waving her hand hurriedly, a rather concerned look on her face. Alice was frantically waving at her and pointing behind her. Amaretto turned at what could have been the last possible moment.

An IronMan loomed before her and his hands were out in front of him, the strange thread running through his hands and a grimace on his face. Amaretto blanched and thought suddenly hos she hadn't heard him at all. His steam and geared parts were not making any noise. Amaretto ducked down and tumbled along the ground and threw her hand up. She yelled the incantation that Tempus had given her to trigger the ring and the IronMan jerked backwards. Alice Jerked her pistols and shot the IronMan twice in the chest. Johanna threw a battle cry and threw her Rapier like a javelin. The sword jerked across the space between them like a flimsy javelin and struck the inside of the IronMan.

Amaretto heard a creaking sound and then heard the sound of gears grinding together and a gear shot out of the automation's chest. It was then followed by another one and another one until finally, it seemed as though the automation stopped moving and was mere inches from Amaretto's face. Amaretto breathed in a sigh of relief and tried not to be frightened anymore. It wasn't working. The fear that she thought she had been holding at bay was getting ready to burst through her chest. The way her heart thudded, she thought she was going to hyperventilate. Her aunt came up behind her and gently helped Amaretto scoot away and then stand up from the IronMan that stood before her.

"That was a little too close," said Katherine with a murmur. "If you want to play hero Amaretto be prepared to be killed. If you want to live to see your home again, let other people be the hero."

Amaretto scowled at her aunt; it was the only way to prevent herself from shrieking and breaking down at that moment. Amaretto took a deep breath and then said, "Well, I'm no hero, but I refuse to be a martyr as well." Her aunt pursed her lips and said nothing in response.

Alice rushed over in a swirl of petticoats and there was a deep frown on her face. "Are you all right then? The monster didn't hurt you, did it?"

Johanna didn't say anything in response. She merely looked up and away from Amaretto and then turned to the IronMan. Leveraging one foot on the fallen lump of metal in a most unladylike fashion, she yanked back on the ward, only to find the inside of it stuck. Closer inspection revealed that the inside of the IronMan's cogs had wrapped themselves around it and now were unable to move because of the impediment to their furious motion. Amaretto smiled if only for a moment before she realized that there was nothing she could do about it. Johanna yanked at the sword once more, and still nothing happened.

Katherine tsked out loud. "Ahh well. Might as well leave it there. It can't cause too much damage. I'm sure it will find a way back to my purse somehow. "

Johanna looked a little sad at that remark, but there was nothing to be done.

"I'm sorry for the destruction of your sword," Johanna said.

"It saved a life," Katherine said with a shrug.

Amaretto rolled her eyes and pointed down the hallway. "The door is what I think we should be focused on."

Grain: New Machina; Second Great British Empire - Cloister of Science...

Amaretto looked at the stairwell with trepidation. She wasn't sure that she actually wanted to walk up the stairwell. She looked to her aunt, who seemed to be shifting things around in her purse. “You wouldn't by any chance have anything in there that could fly us up this flight of stairs would you?”

Katherine looked up from what she was doing and then said, “Don't be ridiculous,” then in a lower tone, “Gravity is far too much of a problem in this dimension.”

Amaretto rolled her eyes and then looked at the ring on her finger. It still shined, but the pearl that was at the center of the ring seemed a little more dull than it once had been. She looked at it and rubbed at the stone in the center. Her aunt took it as a nervous sign and shook her head.

“No use in doing that. I suggest that you walk behind Johanna and I, but you stay in front of Alice. It would be safer for you that way.”

She simply nodded and then said, “That sounds good.”

Johanna started up the steps of one of the helices and began to vanish from sight. In her hand was the large weapon that Katherine had given her and Alice tapped her foot on the ground. “If you don't know what you are going to do, then do nothing, cause if you don't go after her, we will lose her.”

Amaretto sighed and then hurried after Johanna with her aunt. Katherine had stopped rummaging in her purse, and Amaretto could swear she had taken nothing out. Katherine however had a huge grin on her face.

The first flight of stairs they saw no one. The gentle hum of generators could be heard throughout the stairwell. The stairs themselves were open to the outside, so they could see the inside of the large tower chamber that they were in. As they wound their way up, the whole room seemed to spin around them. At the first landing, they began up the second set of stairs and Amaretto noticed that the walls of the inside pillar of the stairs that they were winding around had a set of interconnected gears were adorning the pillar. When she paused for a moment to gaze at the strange gear motif, she gasped. Barely noticeable to the naked eye, the gears were all turning. She immediately pointed it out to her aunt.

Katherine shrugged and then said, “The Cloister runs on it's own power, the gears are what are powering the generators that are downstairs along with eh steam engines that power the rest of it. The gas lighting is new however, I'm sure that the chandeliers are all gas powered as well. Though they may look like candles, those are all fueled by natural gas.”

Amaretto was impressed by this. “How do you know all of this? Have you been here before?”

Katherine didn't say anything at first and then said, “I have been here to New Machina once before. Though during that time, Mother Chime had not yet shown up. The Queen had just ascended to the throne. It was a very nice place, though I can say I had not yet heard of Johanna and Alice yet.”

“So you have traveled though other worlds before.”

“Nothing like this, but sometimes, my charges have been on a different plane of existence. Though I never had to travel that much.”

“Tempus eluded to that much,” Amaretto responded.

Katherine cocked an eyebrow. “You and Tempus getting along then I see?”

“Not like you think,” Amaretto responded.

Katherine shrugged her shoulders slightly and then continued up the stairs after Johanna. Alice walked up behind Amaretto and smiled at her.

“Thank you for doing this. You didn't have to, but as it goes, it is very brave of you. You really didn't have to do this.”

Amaretto bit her tongue and prevented herself from agreeing with Alice. “Didn't the watchmaker vouch for us?”

Alice smiled. “He did, but even still, we were supposed to help you, not the other way around.”

Amaretto mumbled under her breath, “Oh you're helping us, you just don't know it.” She paused on the step that she was on and was about to say something when she heard something. “Did you hear that?”

Alice looked at her a little perplexed. “Hear what?”

Amaretto waved her hands at Alice signaling her to be quiet and then strained her ears. It was faint, but she heard it. She quickly looked out the side of the stairwell and saw what it was that she heard. IronMen were coming across the inside of the Cloister and heading towards the stairs. She pointed them out to Alice.

Alice cursed under her breath and Amaretto caught the last bit of it and was surprised at the bit she heard. “Alice, that was foul!”

Alice grumbled and aimed one of her guns and shot out of the side window of the stairs. There was a metalllic hum and then a buzzing noise as the gun fired. There was the familiar screeching of metal and then a bang as an IronMan fell to the floor. Alice looked smug and Amaretto was surprised.

“That had to be at least a hundred feet!”

Alice smiled smugly. “One hundred and forty-five.”

They heard Katherine call down the stairs, “What was that?”

Amaretto yelled back up the stairs. “IronMen! Coming fast on our tail and towards the stairs!”

Katherine's voice floated down a little agitated. “Then hurry it up and move your arses up here!”

Alice giggled and Amaretto giggled with her. They both began to rush their way up the stairs. As they did, they took note that there were indeed quite a few IronMen rushing the strange staircase. They caught up with Katherine and Johanna rather quickly and Amaretto tugged at Katherine's sleeve. “Will they be able to catch up with us?

Katherine shook her head. “As long as we keep moving, there should be no way, but we have to keep moving. We've only gone up one flight of stairs.”

As if to enumerate her point, they reached the second landing of the stairs.

Amaretto muttered under her breath, “I hate these stairs.”

They continued up the strange staircase, pausing every now and then to allow Alice to get a shot in and fry one of the IronMen. By the time they reached the fifth landing, Amarettto was so sick of her surroundings that she complained about it right there.

“Just be happy that there was no IronMen on the stairs,” Katherine said. Almost as if on cue, there was a hiss of steam and a clanking in front of them. Katherine shook her head. “Me and my mouth.”

An IronMan turned the corner on the stairs and then raised it's arm up to point splayed fingers at them. Large knives switch-bladed out of his fingers and he then took a leap forwards at Johanna. Alice fired her gun and the IronMan fell to the ground and hit the stairs at a funny angle. He jerked down the stairs, leaving a large gouge on the step just before Amaretto. Amaretto looked to her aunt and Katherine looked back at her with an equally surprised look. There were large clanking sounds as it fell and then the familiar hiss was heard as it ejected the heart that was within its chest.

Amaretto frowned. “Why on earth does it do that?”

Katherine looked confused. “Does what do what?”

“Why do the IronMen eject their heart like that?”

Alice spoke up at that moment. “Johanna and I have been thinking about that from reports that we have heard in the past. We aren't sure, but we think that when they took the old guard and were replacing them with the new IronMen, we think that they were the same people that used to be inhabited the guard. We think that they went through something that replaced their original hearts with the new iron ones.”

Amaretto made a face. “That's gross. It sounds like a really bad Egyptian ceremony.”

Katherine nodded her head. “You have to remember that during this time, they were really into artifacts of other cultures. Egypt was one of their favorites. Britain even went so far as to make Egypt a protectorate because of the Suez Canal. Although the country was never formally annexed, the British remained in occupation until 1922 and maintained a substantial military presence until 1954.”

Amaretto thought for a moment and then said, “I thought that the Empire fell in 1783?”

Katherine smirked. “You actually remembered your history classes?”

“We're currently studying it right now.”

Katherine smiled as she continued to follow Johanna up the stairs. “There is that, however, there is also the fact that the time line says that Britain’s second empire lasted till 1850 before it moved into the Imperial Century which lasted until 1914.”

“So then, if this is the Second great British Empire, does that mean that we are still in the same time line?”

Katherine shook her head. “No. The time line may be similar, but that does not mean that time runs the same. That means that even though you may seem similar things, the exact time is not going to be similar.”

AS soon as Katherine said that though, another hiss could be heard and Johanna suddenly took her sword and slashed forwards. In front of here, there was a gurgle and a crunching of what sounded like gears. An IronMan plummeted past the small group and they continued up the stairs. Passing by the sixth landing, they continued up the stairs. Alice turned around and then shot down the stairwell in several spots.

The stairs rumbled and then cracked and then fell into the spaces below. There was a scream and a shattering sound and a crunching noise as several IronMen were destroyed in the resultant rubble.

Katherine gasped. “That was a priceless piece of architectural history! How could you destroy it like that!”

Alice shrugged. “It stopped them from coming up the stairs right?”