all the years I walked unknown behind the faces I'd assumed

Through enchantment you may find this tome sitting upon on your desk or shelf or coffee table, on your favorite tree stump or box of gears. Is it truly there? Your fingers pass through it, yet you can read the pages that seem to know when to turn when you have taken your fill from the open leaves.

The crest embossed on the front is unmistakable. The ziggurat with a pyre at its peak, flanked by batlike wings. As the pages turn you catch scents that are familiar, perhaps not pleasurable but somehow reassuring. It may be absinthe, soot, sulfur, or the lingering vapors of reanimation serum.

Handwritten inside the front cover, addressed to you by name:

It is my dedication you and the many friends I have made in the Steamlands and beyond that has compelled me to return. As a fugitive, the smog and brick canyons grant me anonymity. The sea of tuxedos in allow me to blend in with the other dapper gents on the ballroom floor. The tunnels beneath the streets echo my whispers to your ears.

I have made my presence known to many of you. Some of you have glimpsed me as I raced in silence from one danger to another. Some of you have prayed for my return. I thank you for your prayers, for they have been answered. For you, I write this book so enchanted that only those I trust may see and read.

Is this selflessness or sheer folly to return with nothing more than the clothes on my back and an inoculation pistol? Only time will tell. As Surgeon, Sorcerer and Spark, I will help you however I can, whenever I can. My life has no meaning otherwise.

All I ask in return is that you refer to me in your tales only as "The Scientist", and that you never publish an image of my face or otherwise explicitly reveal my identity. In this regard, my life is in your hands.

Be Well, my Friend.


The Scientist

The book then vanishes in the blink of an eye. Were you only dreaming?

Final Orders

Dear Ash,

There has been an explosion at Mason Labs. Steelhead is burning, and my life's work is strewn as slag across Port Harbor. All of this carnage is my fault. Exile or no, I cannot simply sit and watch.

By the time you finish recharging, I will have donned my aethersuit and jumped ship through the airlock. I have timed my escape to enter the gravity of the wormhole we dicovered earlier. I detect manmade radio frequencies emmanating from it, but I know not the origin. I pray who or whatever is on the other side can get me home.

Find Gematria. She has been missing for too long. If the Timekeepers have harmed her, you are authorized to punish them.

Both of you need to analyze the energies of that explosion. After the lightning and the chain reaction I saw a beam of purest light...nothing I sequestered in my laboratory had that kind of frequency. Search your archives. Prophecies seem to be at work.

I will see you again, My Children, in a happier place. My Love for you will sustain me wherever I find myself, as it will sustain you.

~Darien

The Fourth Year

entropy
fading his life away
before the world can ever see
dissapating
evaporating...

An Experiment Completed

I would like to thank Clockwork Couture for their patronage for the past two months. The loss of Linden Labs was Clockwork Couture's gain. This was my first foray as a professional creative writer, and was thrilled the entire time. I gleefully accepted the challenge of writing new adventures of the Mason family to the tune of a J. Peterman catalog. The newest episodes of Gematria's latest mission can still be read on their blog.

As soon as I re-establish contact with Gematria, her adventure with the Timekeepers will continue in this journal.

I will be more than happy to discuss product placements of virtual as well brick-and-mortar projects privately.

~Dr. Darien Mason

A Gift from the Dauphine

Much thanks, Lady Aeon!

The Doctor is IN, Baby!

Hold my calls, Sparky...

A Farewell to Caledon Regency Hospital

Before...


...and After.


Change is inevitable.