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    The Nephele Ship: Volume One - The Frozen Workshop (A Steampunk Adventure): The Nephele Ship, #1
    The Nephele Ship: Volume One - The Frozen Workshop (A Steampunk Adventure): The Nephele Ship, #1
    The Nephele Ship: Volume One - The Frozen Workshop (A Steampunk Adventure): The Nephele Ship, #1
    Ebook117 pages1 hour

    The Nephele Ship: Volume One - The Frozen Workshop (A Steampunk Adventure): The Nephele Ship, #1

    By Luke Shephard

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    About this ebook

    Volume One of The Nephele Ship series!

    After a catastrophe that covered half the world in inhospitable ice, a team of treasure hunters finds a lead about a mysterious workshop said to contain miraculous and wondrous inventions that could be worth fortunes.

    When the rival guild of archaeologists known as Antimony Eye turns their attention on the same workshop and will do anything it takes to get there first, Captain Austin Strallahan and his crew must think quickly and act even quicker to assure their arrival at the workshop before the Eyes, who seem to know something more about this stash than the captain does...

    Will the Nephele Ship reach the treasure in time?

    Praise for The Nephele Ship:

    "Recommended by a friend. I’ve never really delved into the whole steampunk genre, but if this is any indication I’ll gladly read more. I thought the book had good, sharp writing. You know, it wasn’t just text, the author actually had a voice. The story moved at a good pace with well- paced action scenes. I loved the world created with the mix of old and new. It was a quick, fun read. I look forward to the next edition. Just like from my friend to me, it’s a recommend from me to you."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOur Pack Press
    Release dateJan 19, 2016
    ISBN9781497795815
    The Nephele Ship: Volume One - The Frozen Workshop (A Steampunk Adventure): The Nephele Ship, #1

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      Book preview

      The Nephele Ship - Luke Shephard

      ~Volume One: The Frozen Workshop~

      When a bone breaks, it's a sort of sickening feeling. The pain is almost immediate, but there is a split second before it hits where you become aware that your bone has just been compromised. A sort of base, instinctual reaction to this fact rushes through your mind, and just as you are about to say, Fuck! the pain begins. It's not a lot of fun.

      The huge man pulled his fist back, aiming, I supposed, to break more of my ribs. I gritted my teeth and ducked under his wide swing, feeling the air rip behind his fist, and stepped behind him. He tried to turn to face me, but a strategically placed kick to the back of his supporting knee stopped his rotation. He teetered, and I used that momentary hesitation to introduce the knuckles of my left hand to the bottom of his jaw. I stepped back, wincing.

      Listen, sir, all I want are my things back. I won't-

      He recovered from my uppercut too quickly, and lowered his shoulders, as if to charge and tackle me. He cracked his neck. You won't what? Walk away alive, I think! he growled.

      He started to come forward, but I stepped at the same time, and just as his first foot would hit the floor, I swept it to one side, and he stumbled wildly into the throng of people who had suddenly gathered. Great. That's all I wanted, people watching while I had my ears boxed.

      He caught his balance on a table, and when he turned around again, I rather dishearteningly noticed he had brought his friend, Broken Wine Bottle. He thrust and slashed haphazardly, as near to cutting himself or one of the other drinkers as he was to cutting me.

      Watch it! Careful now! I called. A big man like him gets sloppier as he gets angrier, but I might have been pushing my luck a little with that. It's just a piece of a map, anyway! What would a simpleton like you want with it?

      He answered by stomping down on my foot, trapping me in place as he swung the bottle forward again.

      Think fast. I twisted my torso and caught his wrist with one hand, forcing it upward above my head, and used the turn in my hips to force my other hand, now tightly closed, up into his diaphragm. He coughed, and then froze for a second.

      A very large man falling to the floor of a pub makes quite a loud noise. Loud enough that when this man's head came to rest on the hardwood, everyone hushed suddenly. I straightened my collar, brushed off my cuff, and stooped down to the defeated combatant. I reached into his pocket, and took out a tiny aluminum cylinder, and slid it into my jacket. Before I stood up, I whispered to the man.

      Please don't try to steal my things again. I'm asking politely, as one gentleman to another. I went through eight storage facilities to find this thing.

      I stood up and cleared my throat. The shocked pub owner looked at me like I was insane. You just punched out Jason Gregor. You got some mighty nerve on you.

      I left a couple Lyrea on the bar. One for my drink, one for his, I said, and picked up my hat. I'll be going now.

      I pushed open the door, slid out into the cobbled street. As soon as the door shut behind me, I coughed, and spat up a little blood, leaning heavily on the wall. The sky was a little hazy, and the grey mist was beginning to sweep in over the hills nearby.

      Big tough boxing man, now, are we? said a silky voice, and a blue-gloved hand alit on my shoulder. Keep that up and you'll be the most respected fighter in this whole town, Strallahan.

      I chuckled, immediately regretted chuckling. Victoria, the crew's doctor, never missed an opportunity to give me hell. She continued, straightening her glasses. A little spark ignited in the corner of one lens. Two ribs broken, one fractured. Minor tissue bruising, some lacerations. And you bit your tongue, she added. The spark disappeared, and she shook her head.

      At least I got the map piece back. Give me some credit, I said as we climbed into the waiting carriage.

      Last night, my crew and I had pulled into port to get supplies and just feel solid ground again. The closest port city that allowed private vessels was Old Capitol Toreny, which, while called Old Capitol, was indeed still one of the biggest and most economically and technologically advanced cities on the continent. I had an appointment with an antiques dealer in town to pick up a bit of cash fencing some portraits we had collected, and Victoria had a hookup here where she could get more medical supplies as well, so it was with good fortune on our shoulders that we pulled the Nephele into port and debarked.

      At the common house that evening, Liza, our head engineer, and I were having a drink. The sort of musty air in the place, permeated with a sting of oil and warm metal, felt rather at home for her, but I wasn’t terribly comfortable there. I loosened my collar a bit.

      Liza leaned over, her cup leaning dangerously to one side in her hand, and chuckled. Getting tae warm fer ye, cap’n? she said, and ribbed me with her elbow. She was a wonderful engineer, bright as a brass button, but she wasn’t one for drinking too much. Ye c’n always step out if th’ atmosphere’s not tae yer likin. More o’ th’ drink fer me! she laughed.  I’ll save yer seat fer ye, unless someone more han’some takes it first!

      I needed to do a bit of record-keeping anyway, and prying eyes at a barstool were not the most welcome of things. Drunk as she might get, though, Liza can take care of herself, I thought, and nodded.

      All right then, but you fellows take care of my engineer, you hear? I called over my shoulder at the other patrons. A low cheer came from a few of the drinkers. I stood up, brushed myself off, and shouldered my bag. Bring her home by eleven, and no―

      I was cut a bit short as I turned directly into a larger fellow behind me. I stumbled back a bit, and he reached out to steady me, catching me by the shoulder and the sleeve. Terribly sorry, good man, I said to him, and as he stuck his hands into his pockets, he shrugged.

      No harm done, none at all. He kept walking, past a table in the back where seven or eight individuals dressed significantly too well for this place sat, discussing what appeared to be old books scattered here and there. It took me until a few hours ago to figure out that it was during that moment that he lifted the damn map piece, and until a few minutes ago to retrieve it from his meaty fingers. A good thief he was, but a smart man he was not. If he had realized what the item in the little tin tube he lifted was, he’d have gone directly to who I now know was the Brass Eyes in the back at that table and left with so much money in his pockets that he’d have had to buy a second set of trousers for it.

      Liza, nursing a headache, was waiting for Victoria and me on the prow of the Nephele. Cap’n, did ye get th―

      Yes, Liza, I did.

      An did ye knock that swaggered cu―

      Yes, Liza, I did.

      A’ss my cap’n! She beamed, and rubbed her forehead with her fingers. Now, if ye could just do somethin’ about this headache.

      *****

      I laid out the map in its entirety under a piece of glass on the table in my quarters. We’d originally found the map folded up in a diary recovered from an old museum, long since abandoned due to the creeping ice shelf.

      I regret my dear creations left in the cold, and I regret my inaction. More so, though, I regret the actions I took which brought this all about. All I have now are the memories of my beloved creations frozen there in the waste, and I with nothing but this map of my facilities.

      The journal was penned in a hand far too elegant to be a factory worker, but far too old to be an artist. A little exploring into the locations we could still read on the torn map (as if he had hurriedly grabbed for something he could take with him, and a scrap of this map remained tacked to the wall) led us to the knowledge that the writer was an inventor, one Copernicus Wrightworth, who was renowned as a doll-maker before the flash-freeze, and that the locations marked on the map were the positions of his warehouses. The map lacked the piece, however, that would show us the location of his actual workshop, where we were certain that the old inventor’s creations still lay, waiting to be discovered.

      Dale, our navigator, had been able to find maps that correlated to the one we’d found, and through a process of elimination, we visited the recently-thawed warehouses and storage complexes marked until we found the one from which he fled, and by that same process, the

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