Chapter 1Jonah

  Jonah slipped on a small patch of loose dirt as he rounded the corner of the bar, ducking into a small alley. He could feel a breeze as something rge passed over his head at a high rate of speed as he fell. The breeze was followed by a loud crash as the object hit the building beside him, showering him with debris. Looking up he saw a long chain that was extended above his head, connected to a metallic fist. Turning his head, he followed the chain back to the source from which it came and he found its owner.

  It was a rge man, no shorter than six feet tall, with a hairless head that had a metal pte grafted onto the left side. His body was thickly covered with muscle accentuating a strength not many men would know. He wore a full-length brown duster that, while it was too tight in the shoulders, managed to reach almost all the way to the ground, which was impressive considering his massive frame. The chain that led to the metallic hand was connected to a queer device on the wrist of the man, attached where his hand should have been. The device gave a small puff of steam before beginning to draw the chain back in at an arming rate.

  Jonah ducked again, barely in time to avoid the return trip of the hand as it snapped back to its owner, ready to fire once again. Muttering to himself he started down the alley as fast as he could, trying to get away, hoping he could reach the end of the alley before being spotted again.

  “Get back here you little thief!” Jonah heard the man shout as he reached the end of the alley.

  Jonah smiled to himself as he slipped out of sight and, using a grapple, hauled himself up onto the top of a nearby building. Looking down over the edge he spotted the rge man thundering down the alley below and he chucked to himself.

  The corners of his mouth turned it into a smile.

  “You will never catch me looking down there.” He said, a haughty tone to his voice. “You have got to get a little faster for that my friend. Thanks for the coin.”

  Jonah sat down, pulling a small pouch out of his pocket and began to examine the coin within, counting each one. When he was done, he nodded in satisfaction and closed the pouch up before shoving it back into his pocket. Standing up and brushing himself off he took survey of his surroundings in order to pick the best route to cross the rooftops. Looking below once again to see which directions the rge man was heading in, Jonah set off in roughly the opposite direction.

  Jonah ran quietly and quickly across the rooftops, stepping so lightly, his feet barely seeming to touch the roofing tiles as he moved with an uncanny speed.

  Soon he came to a church with a tall bell tower that was raised higher than all the other buildings in the area and was sitting in what seemed to be the center of the city. Jonah climbed the bell tower with ease, slipping into the roost once he reached the top. Sighing, he looked out onto the city of New Cardeth, the pce he had called home for most of the twenty-three years of his life.

  The city was sprawled out below him, with only a few of the buildings coming close to matching the height of the bell tower. To the east, Jonah could see the ft rooftops of the buildings of the merchant district where the streets and even some of the the rooftops were crowded with booths and stalls. If there was anything you wanted to find and you had the coin, you could find it if you looked hard enough. If you were one of the lucky few who had an ancient piece of technology and needed to find someone capable of servicing it without tearing it up, this area of the city would be your best bet to find who you need.

  Along the far edge of the district was the dock that opened up into the great Ismouth Sea that seemed to stretch forever, ending only because the horizon prevented you from seeing further. The sailors at the docks told stories of strange nds to the far east where the people had all manner of odd machines and refused to eat cooked food, preferring it raw and fresh, though none could tell you that they had actually seen these strange nds for themselves.

  Jonah had his connections in the merchant district, giving him an edge up when casing out a job, but information always comes with a price. That was the reason for the little gambling deception he performed on the rge man earlier that day, Jonah needed money for information so that he could pn for his job accordingly.

  To the north, he could see the capitol building, pressed snugly against a rge cliff wall that rose, towering over the city forming a natural barrier. This was where all the politicians met and went about their petty squabbling. They sat in their pretty building, deciding on how they could show the people that they knew best on a daily basis by leveling heavy taxes and enforcing strict ordinances on the more honest citizens of the rge city. Jonah sneered in disgust as he thought about all the arrogant politicians sitting in their high and mighty positions, looking down on the rest of society.

  The richest of the citizens and politicians all lived in the Whitehall district that surrounded the capitol building. The district received its name for the white arches that rose over its streets, giving them the illusion of being an enclosed hallway that was lit by gas mps that lined the arches, brightly lighting the streets no matter how dark it may get at night. While the common form of transportation for the people of the Whitehall district was horse and carriage, both clockwork and steam powered carriages that required no horses at all were starting to appear with arming frequency.

  Just more toys for those rich, fat bastards to py with, Jonah thought to himself, while ignoring the real problems that pgue this city. The poor get poorer while the rich get richer.

  This was also the district that The Authority was based out of. The Authority was supposedly a peace keeping force, though it seemed like their main job was to keep the peasants out of the Whitehall district while occasionally reminding the lower-css citizens of their pce in order to achieve a peaceful bance, or so the cim went. When times got to tough and the lower csses started to threaten an uprising, The Authority was always there to quell it quickly through use of deadly force. No one that Jonah knew was aware of who the members of The Authority were, or if any of its members were even human.

  Turning his attention to the west, Jonah could see the poorer districts like Low-town were where the people preformed back breaking bor from sun up to sundown, just to scratch out a meager living due to low wages and high taxes. The people in this district were rather creative and ingenious in their pursuits despite the oppression of the upper csses. For instance, the steam powered carriages were originally the design of a local tinker who had designed and built the first one after seeing a clockwork carriage. He had figured a horseless carriage that ran off of steam would have more power than the clockwork ones and could be used commercially for hauling heavy loads.

  As it turned out he was right, unfortunately The Authority did not see things quite the same way. The Authority thought that the new carriage would be dangerous in the hands of the inexperienced and uneducated masses. They promptly put the poor tinker to death then confiscated the steam powered carriage. Months ter steam powered carriages started to appear in the Whitehall district as apparently the Whitehall citizens thought that a steam powered carriage was a novel idea. Luckily instances such as this were rare due to the fact that most of the lower csses kept their ingenious creations out of sight of strangers, using them in the privacy of their own homes only to benefit themselves.

  Beyond the city walls Jonah could see farm nds where the peasants toiled attempting to grow what fruits and vegetables they could in the harsh environment on the edge of the wastend. The wastends formed a natural barrier several miles to the west, protecting the city from too much contact with its closest neighbor, Ib.

  Ib was a city shrouded in mystery, mainly because so few people are brave enough to make the journey across the wastend, though the tales that came from the few merchants that did take their trade that way were fascinating. They tell of a city made of metal that is filled with mutants that resembled a cross between a man and lizard, known as Ibians. Those merchants would speak of the strange backward speech of the Ibian people and the odd customs that they had, including one involving a giant monolithic statue made of a strange bck metal at the center of the city. The merchants would say that around the night of the twin full moons, the citizens of Ib would gather in the massive square that surround the statue and dance the night away while getting drunk on a vile bck sludge called Kristhan which smelled of sewage. While Jonah found the descriptions of the customs interesting, the part of this story that interested Jonah the most was in the description of the monolith itself.

  The statue, while made out of a strange bck metal, is engraved on all four sides with many images of strange animals and pnts, the likes of which, no one had ever seen before. The Ibians cimed that those images were memories of a time long past when the pnet was lush and thrived with life. They would then say that one day the pnet will thrive once more. There is one particur image of a young human female they cimed had once walked the earth, spreading joy and life everywhere she traveled. This female, the Ibians cimed, is the one who will restore the world to its former glory, bringing life out of a desote pnet and giving hope to all.

  Where the image of the girl is, there is a rge sparkling stone unlike any of the merchants had seen before. This stone is embedded in that image, at the center of her stomach. That, the Ibians say, is the key to awakening her. This stone is the prize Jonah had decided would be the focus of his next heist. If he could retrieve that precious stone successfully, he would have pulled off a one-of-a-kind job that no one has ever achieved before and never would be able to pull off again.

  Casting an eye toward the sky, Jonah saw it was beginning to get dark, so he turned and made his way down the stairs that led from the bell tower into the body of the church.

  As he neared the door leading into the sanctuary area, he stopped to listen and, not hearing anything, he cracked the door open then stepped through. As soon as the door shut silently behind him, something hit him hard on the back of the head causing stars to swim across his vision.