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Oh, those are absolutely just suggestions, and I'm trying to find a better way to word it so as not to imply that I'm looking for those topics specifically. I am just trying to give examples to either inspire or be subverted as the writer likes.

Just curious, not to try and pin your selections down, but why wouldn't you be too happy with one of the possibilities? Too narrow? Done to death? Not your preferred genre? It would be useful to know so I could either tweak the topic or avoid it for the future.

Hopefully get a bit more discussion before tonight! Please excuse my n00b-ness!

Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

I'll likely be starting a topic this evening. I have a number of things to take care of today, and my recent absence has been due to me being out of town on business this past week.

I've whittled it down to three possibilities:

1. The World Within - A story that takes place or explores a hidden world that resides, under, alongside, or somehow woven within another world. This can be widely interpreted and I'm interested to see what kinds of places we can find!

2. Stranger in a Strange Land - Whether a traveler on a mission, or a hapless victim plucked from their place in time, it would be interesting to explore their reactions, survival, and whether they find a friend or a way home.

3. From Here to Eternity - This one is about the feeling of always moving, as if on a journey or a road trip. Major themes should revolve around forward motion and change.

If anyone sees this in time, let me know if you are leaning toward any of those themes. If not, I'll pick one at random and post tonight around 9PM Pacific time zone.

It was fine when you first posted, and was perfectly readable. Not sure what happened, but it didn't happen right away.

I'm trying to wrack my brain for a good topic that won't be too niche, but will be fun and also not too, too broad. I also need to come up with something cool for a trophy.

Any suggestions on what might be interesting and not completely done to death are welcome!

[Character]

Character: Mandle - This was a tough call, but there was something so much...*closer* about the character in Taste of Brass that made it feel like you were getting a snippet of memoir, or maybe a hushed story in a bar years later. The narrative was tight and I could practically see the dirt under his fingernails.
Plot: Baron - I think Baron did amazingly, especially with the way pneumatics were giving way to steam, and the way everything was framed as an underworld plot. I seriously saw this animated in a Don Bluth style in my head. The way everything pieced together and picked up speed was also wonderfully paced and timed.
Writing Style: Baron - Again, Baron takes it here as his writing was so vivid and flowed so well. I will say that I had a tough choice as Mandle's writing style in his piece was jarring, lush, and gritty, but Baron's world-descriptions were amazing, particularly as you got to the seedier side of town.
Atmosphere: Baron - I must give a tough nod to Baron, as the entire world came alive with pneumatic power, and then suddenly the story turns and we get the steampunk incursion that shows a changing world, and one where a true power struggle leaves everything uncertain. Between the rotting, leaning structures and the vivid descriptions of the critters that lurked near storefronts like the Pelt Pot and Pheasant Plucker, I could see this partially industrialized forest glade and it was beautiful.

Also, just wanted to say thank you all for the warm welcome and awesome critiques! I'm looking forward to the next writing comp!

2020. It was already here.

Only a few short days ago, the night air was thick with haze as the town horns sounded and the crowd chanted in the new year. As the long, wavering notes rolled across the city, rattling wooden catwalks and resonating in the people's chests, a buzzing jubilation seemed to invigorate the citizens gathered in the city square. Young men and women kissed and danced, their coattails and skirts flapping madly as they frolicked and spun each other over the cobbles. Children chased one another in the streets, threading between draft horses and opulent, steam-powered automotives alike.

Old men sat in a tight clutch under the shadow of a ruined building, their upturned faces illuminated by exotic electric light and the powderworks in the sky. The building had been an old factory, destroyed early on in the Pan-Oceanic Wars, one of many that had shared the same fate. Its jagged skeleton of burned beams and crumbled walls tangled madly with the broken pipes and ruined machinery within. Though other factories had been rebuilt--newer and more automated than before--this, the former Taggart-Smythe Canvasworks remained a ruin; a grim testament to the price folks had paid for a peaceful, modern life. Many of the old men had worked there in their younger days, pulling and cutting canvas, stretching it over wooden and steel frames to make all manner of product. Some of the men reminisced over those days as they sat near the disheveled remains of the building, watching the colorful bursts in the air above.

Now, less than a week later, I sat in my office, looking out the window at the lazy columns of steam rising up from so many rooftop vents. The new year's celebration seemed so far away, like a place out of time. The tone had been one of celebration so frenetic, it was nearly a sort of hysteria, a seeming sigh of relief breathed out at the signing of the last treaty of the wars. The end of the wars had also brought new discoveries from distant lands, which were their own cause for celebration. The Eastern Islands had unveiled new alchemical combinations, turning already impressive gunpowder and the like into even more powerful forms. New Columbia's surrender had brought miraculous electrical light to halls and laboratories across our land, amazing and inspiring any who gazed upon it. Unfortunately, as tantalizing as those discoveries were, they were also expensive for the average citizen, and so such luxuries were reserved for exhibits and novelties of the wealthy.

For the rest of us, with the passing of the celebration came the return of boring, everyday life. Steam hisses out of every fitting, oozes out of every crack. The salty, earthy smell of the water from the nearby ocean, filtered, heated, compressed, heated again, and finally sent to every home and business in the city. Saturated steam power. The lifeblood of our city, for better or worse.

All at once, the light whistle and harmonic chime of the viaspeak pulled me out of my reverie. I picked up the handset and opened the vent.

"Hello?" I intoned, raising my voice slightly.

"hi there my dear verran, how are you today?" Johnson's voice was raised, as if calling across a wide dinner hall, yet what issued from the vent along with puffs of steam was flat and tinny. Johnson's voice, which had a rich, booming quality in person, was barely a whisper once it had passed through the communication pipes snaking along the rooftops. As he paused, waiting for me to respond, I could hear the ghosts of other conversations in the pipes. Johnson had told me once it was the switchboard itself resonating from a thousand simultaneous connections at over ten-thousand psi. I figured myself wise to believe him, Johnson was the smartest fellow I knew.

"Ah! Johnson! I'm well! Good to hear from you old friend! To what do I owe the pleasure?!" I nearly yelled. There had been a time when we could speak normally through the viaspeak, and it was as if talking to someone right beside you. However, since the wars and the few years of slapdash work to patch as many of the damaged pipes as possible, it was only a step or two better than simply opening your shutters and screaming across town. Granted, it was still a step or two better in that regard, and so we made do.

"verran, i need you here at your earliest convenience. i've something incredible to show you." The vent puffed back. My interest was piqued. Johnson was a tinkerer--a well-connected one at that--and had first told me about electrical lights when an associate of his got a delivery from the capitol for use in their laboratory. Johnson's voice couldn't hide a certain note of glee whenever he got close to something big, and I heard it in him now. Still with glee stitched in his throat, he urged. "how soon can you get out?"

"I've got one last affair to put in order for the day, and then I'm free to leave." Some didn't take the job of a pump clerk seriously, but it was my pen that allowed the coastal shipments to travel inland or the capitol shipments to land on our city's dock. Even if most of those bills of lading were "REDACTED" for the war efforts and the crates sealed against tampering. Most of the lines for the steam locomotives had been damaged, but it made my job no less busy as I struggled to route engineers and their shipments along the undamaged mains that still connected the cities.

"perfect!" Johnson's voice rattled through the vent "ring up when you get here!"

*

As I walked along the street, I passed shops and apartments alike, some run-down and battered by the war, usually hastily patched back together with whatever steel and stone was on hand. Exposed steam pipes had been repaired with whatever was around, resulting in looping, hissing networks of bronze and copper snaking across the faces of many of the structures. Many of the destroyed shops gave way to alleys crammed with orphaned shopkeepers and ramshackle markets that found ways to harness and share a damaged pipe to heat their food or operate their machinery. Some shopkeeps would rebuild, but many others abandoned their damaged buildings, and others would move in as best they could amid the rubble and abandoned outlets. Almost all of these alley markets harbored foreigners, and it was rumored there was a healthy black market to be found there, complete with practitioners of magic, such as it was. I never gave to such silliness of course, no one had ever seen any magic outside of a kid's show, and it was a common theme in fable books read to babes before they went to sleep at night.

The shops gave way to homes, packed tightly together along a narrow lane. Each home had what could only be charitably called a yard, with the majority of the front real-estate taken up by steam mains sprouting out of the concrete (or dropping down from the rooftops) before diving into the front of the house to whichever destination they were intended. Each pipe had a large valve, and each valve was locked with a tag for that particular service. As I looked up the length of the street toward Johnson's house, a steam automotive passed by, the muted chug-hiss sound of the air pistons first growing larger then fading as the 'motive rounded a corner and was gone. Many of the homes were well kept, and it was obvious this area of the city had suffered very little damage, and the residents here struggled quite a bit less as a result.

As I approached Johnson's house, a strange feeling of unease came over me. Everything seemed well in order, but as I came closer to the front of the house, something inside was running, or broken. A long, squealing clank came from inside, one that repeated, like a wheel turning against its will. My feeling of unease slid wholeheartedly into dread as I tried the gate and found it unlocked. The clank from within the house was accompanied by the hiss of runaway steam, and as I pushed the front door open, my stomach sank to see the interior in complete disarray. Johnson's tall, orderly stacks of books on science and engineering and the like had been toppled over, with tomes and pages scattered all about the wooden floor. The tables and chairs in the main room had been toppled, and chests of drawers had been ransacked. Many of Johnson's smaller inventions and designs lay broken on the floor. As I picked my way into the kitchen, the clanking sound became deafening, and I finally found the source; a steam-powered dish washing contraption of Johnson's making that had been damaged beyond recognition. Gears squealed against damaged parts, urged endlessly on by a shot of steam. The cabinets above were all open, some so violently, the doors had been torn from their hinges. Dishes and dry goods lay shattered and crushed on the floor, the counters a similar sight. I stepped gingerly out of the ruined kitchen and crept my way upstairs, where Johnson was known to spend most of his waking hours.

The scene in Johnson's workshop was even more dire, with flasks of chemicals shattered everywhere, tools and small steam mechanicals strewn every which direction, and shelves upended, their former contents a scrabbled mess on the stained wooden floor. I searched for any sign of Johnson himself, and could find none, good nor bad. As I turned to leave, wondering over my next step, a bit of motion caught my eye through the nearby window. A bit of paper had been caught between the shutters and was catching on the breeze outside. I made my way to the window and tugged at the paper, freeing it from the shutters. My stomach did a strange flip as I unfolded the paper and read what was written:

"Verran,

Worry not, for I am safe. I'm not far, and I'll find you when the time is right. For now, you must hurry to the place we played in as boys. I've hidden something there that I need you to keep safe.

Tell no one. Call no one.

-J."

I folded the paper and stuffed it into my jacket pocket before taking one last look at the room and hurrying downstairs.

*

It was getting dark as I approached the old alleyway where Johnson and I had roamed as boys. Back in that time, it was a wonderous, twisted passage behind the shops and homes of grown-ups, a forgotten place except to us and other children who darted around corners and ducked under steam pipes, finding hidden crannies tucked away within the maze of fittings, valves, and brickwork. Now, as I stood before it, it was another alley taken over by the homeless and unscrupulous marketeers, teeming with lantern light and beady eyes waiting to strike a deal across the table. Suspicious eyes watched me and foreign tongues chattered nervously as I made my way slowly through the winding path of tables and merchants that trailed further and further into the alley.

"HEY YOU!" A hand grabbed me just as the voice yelled to my left. I recoiled, only to see someone from a place across the ocean, motioning at a blanket covered with stone carvings. "YOU BUY SOMETHING? YOU LIKE SOMETHING?" I looked past them and saw some small children--younger than myself when I had run through the alley with Johnson--huddled near a lantern, sharing a blanket and eating something roasted on a stick, no doubt from one of the other merchants. I turned my attention back to the man in front of me, waved my hand no, and started to walk away. Before I could get more than a few steps, my conscience had gotten the better of me and I turned back with some coins in hand. The man's face brightened immediately, and he offered me a small, green carving of a man. It was attached to a delicate gold chain and the carvings had been etched with a staggering precision. I took it and nodded my thanks before continuing into the alley.

All at once, I came upon a small intersection where the alley split. Both directions harbored more tightly packed market stands, but just off to my right was what I was there for, a third split in the alley that was too tangled with pipes and mains for any adult to walk. The pathway was covered by a grate and set up in front of it was a small table selling exotic fruit. The frail little woman who stood behind the table smiled. I pointed beyond her at the path. She turned, looked at the path, turned, looked at her fruit, and smiled at me. I once again pointed at the path. She frowned for a moment, then pointed at me, smiled, then motioned at the fruit. I reached once again into my pocket, and the old woman's smile brightened. I pointed at the coins in my hand, then at the path behind her. Her eyes lit up and she nodded while holding out her hands. I inwardly thanked myself for bringing money as I dropped the coins in the woman's hand with a soft clink. Quick as a flash, she stepped aside and watched as I pulled the grating back and slipped through into the crowded passage.

I slowly made my way through the passage, working around tarnished pipes, badly worn fittings, leaking valves, and thrumming saturated steam mains. The brick and metal walls were close in on me, and through them I could hear faint echoes of life; laughter, fights, steam mechanicals for the businesses humming along, all in a muted symphony of man living out his days. Finally, I came upon Johnson and I's old place, a burst pressure vessel that was too nested back in the alley to be removed when it failed, and the protective tangle of twisted and rusted pipes surrounding it. I threaded my way carefully to the back where the tank opened with a huge, weathered scar and peered inside. Within was a sheet of burlap, tied with rope around a bulbous shape. Pinned to the mysterious package was a note, scrawled hurriedly in Johnson's hand.

"My friend, I hope you find this before they do.

This is going to rewrite history.

Get it out of the city, I know you can.

BE CAREFUL WITH IT!

-J."

As I untied the rope, the burlap fell away to show a strange metal and wood contraption. It was shaped much like a flintlock rifle, and in fact I recognized some of the parts, but much of it was strange, with metallic canisters, strange wires, and pressure gauges intersecting one another. One side had a lever, and the entire assembly had tubes and wires going to a pack. A set of dark goggles was tucked into a pocket on the pack with another note: "Wear these!" it read. I tucked the goggles in my breast pocket, slipped the pack over my shoulders, and slung the contraption into a loop hanging from the pack. I was able to barely cover the contraption at my hip with my peacoat, but it looked as though I was smuggling a large ferret. I figured it was the best I could do for now, and started making my way back to the market.

As I came closer to the grate with the old woman, I saw her speaking with a couple of thin, pale men. They wore dark suits and constantly looked around them, as if they expected to be pounced upon at any moment. Their mustaches were tightly trimmed and their collars were turned up high against an imaginary wind. I realized as they spoke that it wasn't the common tongue, but the woman's own language. They spoke quickly, with a clipped voice that sounded much like nails on a chalkboard. The woman shook her head, and as she did, one of the pale men looked past her and caught sight of me. I had barely registered this when without words, the other looked my way, pulled out a pistol, and fired a shot. The bullet punctured a pipe near my head and all at once the space filled with hot steam. I scurried back, my skin growing hot from the rapidly expanding vapor and scrabbled to cover around a corner. I could hear the men prying at the gate and the old woman yelling at them. I pushed away from the corner and heard another shot ring out, but I thought better of trying to look back to see if they were reloading. I ambled steadily along the cramped alleyway, past the old pressure vessel, and into a part of the alley I had rarely gone. By the sounds of it, the men hadn't followed me through the scalding hot steam and I chanced a quick break. I once again considered my new gadget and saw the levers, knobs, and switches were numbered. A small pressure knob was labeled "1". As I turned the knob, a small gauge on the side rose into the green. "2" and "3" were small silver switches that when flipped, turned on some small electrical lights. The lever on the one side was "4", and once I pulled that back, the contraption came alive. An impossible blue light came from the very end, and it made a deep rumbling crackle that was as exciting as it was unsettling. The pack slung over my back vibrated softly, and it made a soft whirring like I'd never heard before. The only other control was the old flintlock trigger, and I had a feeling I knew what that did. I returned the switches and knobs to their original positions, holstered my new flintlock, and continued to the furthest end of the alley. I needed to find Johnson.

*

As I navigated my way through the last few pipes in the dark alleyway, I found myself emerging next to the seaside, near one of the old docks used to send our war machines to the front overseas years ago. It had long since been abandoned in favor of one of the many docks closer to the heart of the city, and now stood in disrepair. The glowing streetlamps barely illuminated the edge overlooking the water. The moon above cast a bluish light on anything the lamps couldn't reach. As I walked toward the street, a 'motive came to a halt in front of me and a thin, pale man stepped out.

"Give me the weapon." he demanded. His eyes were dark, and aside from his mustache, he had no hair. No eyebrows, no sideburns, not even chin stubble. His suit was so dark and spotless, it seemed to absorb any light that hit it. It almost felt as if the lamplight refused to go near him. He took a step forward. "Give me the weapon. Now."

I dashed to the left, and felt his hand clutching at my peacoat. As I ran, I twisted myself in an effort to get free of my coat, which the man now had a deathgrip on. As I turned to free my arm, I saw the man reach into his coat and produce his pistol. I swiped mindlessly at his arm as he leveled the pistol at me and felt the gun go off as I heard an angry lead ball whizz by my ear. I was nearly free of my right arm and gave one last, hard yank. The man stumbled with my coat in his arms as I turned and ran as fast as my legs could take me. I could hear the steam 'motive turning around to come after me. I grabbed my newfangled flintlock out of its sling and turned the knob. Another shot rang out as I flipped the two switches. The men were yelling at one other in a language I had never heard, and the automotive was getting closer. I yanked the lever as I rounded on the approaching horde of men, and suddenly recalled that I hadn't put on the goggles. I squeezed my eyes shut as I pulled the trigger and the deep crackle became a snarling roar as the weapon thrummed unnaturally in my hands. Behind my eyelids, I saw flashes of light, filtered into a reddish-orange blur by the gossamer skin over my eyes. I let go of the trigger and the weapon quieted in my hands. I no longer heard yells or the rumble of the 'motives air pistons, instead there was a deathly quiet punctuated by a heavy dripping sound. As I opened my eyes, I saw the melted, twisted remains of the steam automotive, some places still glowing orange hot and dripping slag onto the cobbles below. The men lay motionless on the ground, charred and burning, one of their hats a few feet away, slowly licking flame on the street. I looked beyond the flaming wreckage at the old government dock. Many of the dock boards were now broken and charred, the tops of the wooden piles glowing red with fresh embers. I surveyed the damage before me, whatever it was that came out of the front of the weapon, it wasn't traditional fire, it was something...much more devastating. I quickly stowed the weapon as best I could and headed for the pumpyards, I needed to get out of the city, and fast.