In which the Foundation is both Steampunk and Evil.
The crew of the Wingspan dimmed the gas lights in the main hall of the dirigible, as the Party sat upon their thirteen thrones. The fourteenth throne, for the Founder himself, had not been empty in six months. Why would it be vacant, when his corpse rested peacefully on it?
The Party, ranked by how the Founder had seen their use to his Foundation, took their role call. They all called out their presence to the crewmember assigned to their attendance and were left to begin the meeting.
The First, hands clasped on the table, spoke. His voice was gravelly, befitting his rather advanced age. He was the second oldest at the table, not counting their beloved Founder. "Today, we do as we have done for years." He stood, and his cloak slid off his back, landing proper on his throne. From his garb, he pulled out a glass ball and placed it in the middle of the table. "This was found in London, and it is said to hold the power of those who have died possessing it. I have heard the screams from within it, and all tests conducted by our organization have only confirmed the spirits within."
The First held his cane high. He acted as conductor for the upcoming acapella chants of the other twelve Party members. They spoke then in Enochian, all of their voices mingled together as they continued their ritual. With the crescendo of their chant, the finale of their words, The First slammed his cane into the glass ball. Leaking from the artifact, like a cracked egg's yolk, was a light blue fluid. The First picked it up and cracked it fully open above the mouth of the Founder. The liquid flowed viscously into the dead man's rotted jaw, down his throat, into his decayed organs.
The Founder convulsed and screamed out as the Enochian chant ended, and his life was restored once more. He took a glance at the paper before him and his shaky hands flipped and skimmed the pages. He looked upon his thirteen disciples, seated on their thrones, and spoke. His voice was weak, though it carried throughout the room, almost a boom in the ears of the Party.
"First order of business: we have a rogue element."
The quiet, contemplative exterior of the mansion was ever a sight for sore eyes. The wood that this palace had been cut out of was exquisite, and the things found on the inside were almost as wonderful as this. Not wonderful like a flower, or a woman's beauty, but instead in the things that they could do. The things that they could bring to all of the Party, to those who ran the day-to-day of the Foundation.
Doctor Henry Beauregard wrapped his hand around the ivory doorknocker of the mansion and knocked six times in quick succession. He paused for a moment before he knocked twice more, this time with a beat between the knocks. The door slowly creaked open at this, as the doctor stepped inside. He adjusted his suit and stepped further into Manor Caesares.
The Party had dubbed it such it after the society hidden by the Steam Control and Production Foundation, a simple worker's guild; the Sanctum Caesares Principatus, they called their society. It was apparently meant to be a Latin reference to how all of the people of their organization would become like Caesar. Beauregard believed it with his entire chest. They controlled these things beyond man, learned how to harness them, of course they would rule as Emperors over the world. The only thing that blocked that goal was an inability to fully harness every supernatural thing they have.
He was assigned to the animalistic among their supernatural things. He was a biologist in his prior life, and he felt this new role suited him well. He had always known he was better than his peers, more worthy of the luxuries of the world. He continued down the halls of the manor, he passed by the necromancers worked at their collected bones, the mages practiced curses that would liquefy your organs, and men of science who crafted machines for their secret society.
Dr. Beauregard made his way up into the Master of the House's room. He had always been afraid, slightly, of Moose. They had always been one of the greater magical users in the Sanctum, befitting their position as the lord of Manor Caesares. He had been summoned today for some unknown purpose to him. He hoped that it was due to his successes in weaponizing a practically unkillable dog. It was a trivial action to release it into a political rally to sew a little chaos and recover the corpse under the guise of disposing of the body before it revived itself. All it took was a little breach of procedure, but procedure should always come before innovation. The doctor did believe that he deserved some kind of commendation for this, some kind of promotion, something for his service. He hadn't received anything like that yet, so this must've been it! His promotion! When he was to finally ascend the ranks to become a Consul of a specific area of expertise!
He opened the door to Lord Moose's office, the office barren and devoid of any life except Beauregard himself. He takes a seat in the chair closer to the door, obviously the inferior of the two. His was purely wooden, and stiff to sit on. The chair across from him, obviously designated for Lord Moose, was made of something that vaguely resembled leather. He had to assume that it was some supernatural animal that the Lord had skinned for their comfort, as it looked much too soft to be leather.
In a moment, the Lord appeared in their seat. It was uncomfortable to be around someone like this, for Beauregard. He knew that Moose, should they wish, could simply crush his skull, liquefy his brain, his heart, practically anything. They were intensely powerful, and he swore that he could almost feel the power coming off of them as they appeared. It felt to him like the heat from a fire, a feeling across his face that was intensely uncomfortable. He did not move, though, as he did not wish to disrespect someone of such a rank in the Sanctum.
"My Lord." He said, quickly regaining his composure.
"Henry Beauregard." They said, holding over every syllable. "You are one of the biologists we have inducted, correct?"
"Correct. I have faithfully served for the last two years." He held a smirk on his face at that. He knew many others who had limited success in the same timeframe that he successfully learned how to utilize an unkillable tool for their society.
"Yes, you had been given reign to study and work to utilize Steam Control Project 5611, correct?" The Lord's voice strained a little here. Beauregard thought nothing of it.
"Yes, my Lord." His smirk evolved into a full smile. He had earned it.
"And you released it into a political rally without permission to remove and test it? Without anyone to aid in case of a failure? A failure that very likely could have happened, as you are new to our organization, with no training for what you tried?" Moose's voice now was distinctly angry.
"I— Lord, I have an explanation—" Beauregard began. "I had to seize what was mine. As the Party would wish, I sowed chaos and dissent among the people!"
"You killed three people in a politician's crowd. He's sure to spin it as a terror attack. The Party is upset in your actions, and I have been directed to act."
The doctor, now forgetting himself, glared at Moose. "And they think themselves the arbiter of what our organization is allowed to do?! You are a fucking buffoon along them! Incompetent! I know that I will be able to—" Beauregard screamed at the Lord of the Manor, before pausing. He felt a shortness of breath, before his lungs and heart exploded inside of his body. He slumped forward.
Lord Moose called one of their fleshcrafters into the room, and she went about shaping the corpse into a wonderful two birds. To the legs of the birds Moose attached a letter for the Party, explaining how the potentially harmful element to their future plans had been successfully repurposed. Their directions to eliminate potential rogue factor has been followed to the tee. In a moment, the birds took off toward the meeting place of the Party, guided by the Lord's magic. Slumping into their seat, Moose got to reviewing some of the plans set for them. It was a regular Tuesday.
Manor Caesares was a lovely Gothic-styled manor, but it was not the first building put upon this soil. They demolished all but the basement levels of Asylum 19 to build the too large for its exterior halls of the mansion. In the depths of what was once the asylum, they held beasts from humanity. Not out of any sense of protection for the people, no. It was for their own power that they held and worked to understand these things. The Chief Technician of Steam Control Project 173, Saylor Mortar, who was adorned in his Sanctum Caesares Principatus garb, placed his hands on top of the man standing guard for the basement entrance. He signalled his rank by a secret, complex handshake, before he was waved past the guard and walked into the basement that he spent much of his days.
He unlocked the door to his pet project and smiled. A man was chained to one of the walls, facing away from the statue. Instead of the statue killing the man and moving on, however, it was trapped in a hamster wheel. It spun the wheel continuously, all day, turning the gears that connected to it to work various mechanisms around Manor Caesares. This is what powered the manor, and the only thing that impeded this was the fact that the statue defecated. Constantly.
Chief Technician Mortar had no idea how to fix this dilemma. He was overwhelmed by the smell and refused to get close to that thing to see where it spewed out from. Instead, he just decided to install a small drain under the statue and leave it be. He didn't have a lot of workers to do the jobs that he didn't want to, either. Many of those unenlightened few who they would use for dangerous and disgusting things actively protested their organization. Some even tried to break into 173's chamber. His procrastination worked, largely, for three weeks. Mortar was called back to the energy chamber then, and it wasn't because the person that they chained to the wall had died. No, it was because the room was knee deep in feces.
It was going to be a long day.
The Condensate Industrialists, a newly established movement consisting largely of Steam Control and Production Foundation employees not brought into the fold of the Sanctum Caesares Principatus, gathered outside of Steam Plant 17. They held signs and shouted out protests. They held some kind of belief that they were being mistreated by the Foundation. Lord Gears, the one granted the title of owner and director of Steam Plant 17 and the associated Sanctum operations hidden beneath the guise of a legitimate business, stood from the balcony that had been built out of his office. He could see there into the courtyard, and his expression shifted from neutrality to a slight frown.
He had heard whispers of this, but he had hoped that this would not happen. Not because he did not know or, frankly, enjoy the idea of what he had to do to break their morale, but it was rather inconvenient for his day plans. He sighed a little, letting out any doubt he had about this plan, before pressing the large button that he had set out for himself. This signalled a door leading to the inside of the facility to open. From the insides came a horde of guards. The guards attacked the protestors, their goal obvious: to quell this attempted insolence toward the organization that had graciously given them work.
Some of the Industrialists fought. Others did not. The Lord Gears was pleased either way, as he thought most would fall here, and the quibble would resolve quick after this. He would have them slink back into their place on the assembly line, and continued production to meet the quotas set out by him and defined by the Party. He turned away and made his way back to his desk. There he continued his paperwork and considered what else he would have done. He approved crosstests between various supernatural things that would potentially aid the Sanctum in their goal of complete and total world unification under their banner.
…
Four hours later, Gears took a moment to stand from his work and glanced outside. The Industrialists still stood, their protest still raged. How the hell could his guards fail him? He was going to have their heads by the end of the week. Lord Gears slammed down on his desk, and his hands became shaky. He decided then that he was going to ignore the protests. They would die down, and they would end up filing back into the factory to work. He did not want a repeat of the last time that someone had branded themselves as revolutionaries to their organization. It did not end well for the Founder, and he did not want to end up in his shoes.
A week later, and nothing had changed. Gears was now seething in his top-floor office, as he had been informed that they had set up tents outside of his plant. They had stayed there for days. He didn't know what to do, until he realized… He could kill them with one of the Steam Control Projects they had kept there. Violence could be very easily covered up and swept away after he had performed it. He picked up his phone from his desk and contacted his Engineers in the hidden area of the plant.
Recent discoveries from someone out of Manor Caesares, generously gifted to Steam Plant 17 by their Lord, Tilda Moose, had given him a nigh unkillable dog that he had ordered released. It took a moment, before he started to see chaos erupt. He swore he saw blood spew out from his balcony, and he leaned over the railing to peer properly down. They fought back against it. He expected as much, but they would be bested by it eventually. It could continue when they rested. They had killed it for now, but it would continue. The rabies would spread, and—
A shot rang out, as Gears registered that there was now a bullet embedded into his left arm. The pain rang out to his mind, and he rushed back into his office. From there, his memory failed him. Everything past that point happened so fast. They stormed the Plant. They stole some of the smaller and more sentient Steam Control Projects. They killed a good few of his men, and however replaceable they were, it was a pain to do so.
He finished his report to the Party and handed it off to the Liaison. He was told that they would review his report and decide on an adequate course of action in the next meeting. Gears wondered if a corpse could worry for its future, or fear for a repeat of its past.
On the Wingspan, the Founder sat across from his most loyal disciple. The First, the Acolyte, whatever he wanted to call him in the moment. They had not left their respective thrones since the meeting ended. They had waited for the other members of the Party to depart, before they spoke to one another.
"My Lord," The First began. "I do not know how we can continue these works with the incompetence that we have set before us. Our own members seek to undermine us, if they believe they can better our plans, our agenda." He looked to his master and saw nothing but a blank expression looking toward him. "I don't know what we can do to quell this, except to root out the infections where we find them. Our servants are diligent, but I fear they may attempt to take spots they believe to be theirs in higher rule if they know or foolishly think they can."
The Founder had averted his attention to his near full glass of wine, though he had not reached out for it. He simply stared into the purple liquid as if the Acolyte was not there at all. The First continued regardless. "I just don't wish you to be the victim of another strike. Like you were prior. With the last batch of insolent children who did not understand our purpose. I care for your well-being too much, my Lord. I could not bear to know that I could've—"
The Founder held up a hand toward the air, slowly lowering all but his pointer finger. The Acolyte muted himself and stared at his Lord, awaiting his words. His wisdom that he would surely let forth. The decrepit voice of the Founder spoke quietly, and the First listened closely to every syllable. "Our first rebellion got so far because of your care."
Silence flooded through the room, as if it was more than just the absence of sound. The apprentice stared to his master, his Lord, and his jaw quivered. He did not bother to clench it, even as his eyes started to flood with tears. Why? He was stronger than this. He had heard much worse from others and did not care.
The Founder saw his quiver and his tears. The man who should have been nothing but a corpse laughed at him. He laughed like it was the most entertaining thing he had seen in his entire hundreds of years long life. Then, when he had calmed, his head slunk back in his seat. The flies, warily, made their return to feast upon his body.
And the First continued to care for his Master's body, as he had done for so long.