Kingship an Odyssey in Aether Episode 3 The Mad Monk

By Michael Richie

Soar the skies on the Kingship amidst uplands and aetherships! This episodic series follows the exploits of the Kingship's crew as they embark on one daring adventurer after another outwitting the nefarious Hand of Paris. From clockwork contraptions to eldritch horrors, airships to time travel, the Kingship series is an adventurous odyssey of strength, nobility, and mystery all wrapped up in the best the genre of Steampunk has to offer.

Not familiar with Steampunk? No problem. Think H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, but dialed to an eleven! It’s the romantic notion of the Victorian age melded with steam powered yet futuristic technologies. Its airship pirates by day, waistcoats, corsets, and bowler hats in London battling the supernatural by night.

Episodes are fast paced, with heroes you will love and villains you will hate, set in a world familiar, alien, and exhilarating all at once!

This is the third episode of the adventure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Richie
• Release date: Apr 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463876770

Michael Richie

I always find writing a bio a little self aggrandizing, but here it goes anyway! Obviously I write, or I would not be here. Professionally I am an award winning tabletop game designer and writing fiction has always been a passion.I am married to a beautiful wife and together we have an amazing son. We try to enjoy life to its fullest, which includes travel, hiking, good food and better friends. Life is too fast paced and nothing is better than a campfire with family, both literal and found.I am fascinated by the world in which we live and while I claim no knowledge above rank amateur in most of the subjects in which I find interest, I attempt to at least keep myself literate, scientifically, culturally, geographically, historically, and spiritually. I think a lot of this comes out in my writing.As for my writing style, my stories tend to be compact and episodic, but told in a way that engenders the characters to you and makes you want to read these stories over and over again (at least that is what I have been told).Anyway, that is a little window into me. I hope you enjoy my works. Check back here or follow me on social media as I plan on writing a whole lot more!-Mike Richie

Book preview

Chapter One

Two days of heavy rain and gale-force winds did little to disturb the day to day operations on board the HMS Royal Sovereign. At over a thousand feet long and nearly two-thirds as wide, England’s newest flagship was by far the largest and most impressive aethership in the British Air Navy. Aside from an occasional almost imperceptible sway of the deck, her massive engines kept the Royal Sovereign aligned with the leading edge of the lashing storms. Construction of her enormous catamaran hulls in the Liverpool shipyards required a combined Herculean effort of engineers, shipwrights, and laborers just to even design and erect the berth upon which the vast bulk would be built. Queen Victoria II had been present at the laying of the keel and stood shoulder to shoulder with the roustabout laborers, deftly hammering the first rivet herself. Two years later at the christening and launch, Her Royal Majesty again got her hands dirty shoveling the first symbolic bucket of coal into the ship’s ravenous furnaces. In the subsequent four years of her active duty the Royal Sovereign became firmly established in people’s minds, both friendly and otherwise, that she was the Queen’s favored aethership, as well as the indomitable sword and shield of the British Empire. Armed with the latest in plasmatic and conventional weaponry, redundant Pythian vapor drives, an attack wing of over two hundred Sopwith class fighters, a battalion’s worth of ground forces and rocket troopers, as well as a dedicated crew of over four thousand, the Royal Sovereign was arguably the most advanced mobile military force in the world. Even the American dreadnoughts Lincoln and Enterprise, though faster, could not field as large a force as she.

This sheer amount of power and prestige was entrusted to Admiral Charles McMillan who was at this moment walking along an outer corridor from the starboard side engine room of the steel leviathan en route to his quarters. Easily he could have taken a stream tram running the length of the aethership but the admiral had a great deal to think about and walking allowed him time to clear his mind and organize his thoughts. Howls of the wind and incessant spatters of rain on the thick glass of the portholes had a cathartic effect on him, and he began to prioritize the remainder of his day which was going to be quite busy even by his standards. As he walked, hands clasped behind his back, several crew members who seemed to not notice him at first were suddenly taken off-guard at his attire. They stopped and smartly saluted their commanding officer, a salute which he returned crisply each and every time. He wanted to change out of the greasy jumpsuit and maintenance gear he was wearing while inspecting a section of one of the engine rooms with several of his officers. Charles chuckled slightly at these men and women who served under him had not thought ahead appearing in full uniform and came to regret their wardrobe choice as the admiral led the way by crawling through every access tunnel and into the deepest and darkest bowels of the ship the likes of which most high ranking officers never would bother to see for themselves. This type of leadership, so characteristic of McMillan, inspired those whom he commanded to follow him, as his officers did today, despite their fresh uniforms and mirror polished boots and more to the point, inexperience. Several of these officers were relatively new under his command. Most with whom Charles had formed deep ties commanding had moved on, either in commands elsewhere or retired and doing something else, something they loved. Everyone seemed to be having adventures in far reaches. Everyone except him. Those officers and friends would have known to dress properly for an engine inspection.

Still, Admiral McMillan simply was a man people followed with neither question nor hesitation. Service to Queen and Country had earned him his commission twice over and working his way up through the ranks over the past several decades witnessed to Charles more the post Calamity world had to offer than most. This gave the man a calm, measured stature which can only be purchased with such experience and engendered fierce loyalty from those who served under him be they new or veteran. It also put him within a very small circle of people whom the Queen completely trusted. The fact the quartermasters who oversaw on-board laundering facilities would have their hands full tonight was a small price to pay for that type of military unity and experience gained by his current staff.

His pace slowed somewhat and the admiral looked out at the lead gray clouds both above and below, almost completely obscuring the upland of Croydon in the distance and giving him a momentary and rare feeling of solitude on the giant warship. While the inspection of the engine room had certainly been on his to-do list for the day, it was the solitary event on that list he’d any real joyful anticipation of when he awoke that morning. It was about the only scheduled task that required him to get out from behind his giant, rather ostentatious desk and actually get his hands dirty. McMillan was a man of action, and it seemed the older he got, the less of it he saw. Charles was less than fond of the ever-increasing administrative duties accompanying the gold aiguillette of his uniform. He realized as he stared into the rain-lashed grey that the Royal Sovereign had been moored in place outside London for over two months following her, in his opinion overly brief shake down voyage. Were the reason behind this been simply because there was no trouble or conflict to be had in the world at large, McMillan would have rejoiced. After all, as a man of honor he would gladly trade his melancholy restlessness for peace and security. However, such was not the case. While the Aether Accords were still in place and enforced for the most part by civilized countries, much of the world was anything but civilized and the Admiral’s plate was full in dealing, administratively of course, with the problems of the day. Most of those reports of issues were coming in increasing numbers from those very countries, a prospect which he found most unsettling. Tethered as he was to the seat of the British Empire it was difficult to sift through the mountains of reports, wireless signals, telegrams, and returning patrol ships separating rumors, facts and actual threats from perceived and often skewed perceptions from the lower ranks. While much of the inbound information seemed farfetched and incredulous, the admiral was world wise enough to not immediately dismiss them out of hand, himself witnessing one too many myths made real. No, the world used to be far simpler, and it struck him as odd that in his grandfather’s time rowdy American colonists throwing tea into a harbor was sufficient reason to cross an ocean and go to war. Nowadays, forces dark and sinister haunted, figuratively and literally, every corner of the wounded world.

Metallic creaking of an opening hatch accompanied by approaching footsteps at the far end of the corridor he recently came from shook the admiral out of his pensive gaze into the gloomy London squall. The