Part of the

Machine
Part of the Machine
Author: Davide Mana

Credits
Published by GG Studio
Production: Gionata Dal Farra
Art director & Fashion consultant: Angelo Montanini
Graphics and Layout: Matteo Ceresa and Luca Basile
Additional contents: Umberto Pignatelli
Editing: Clara Giuliani
Cover: Alberto Bontempi

This game references the Savage Worlds game system,

available from Pinnacle Entertainment Group at
www.peginc.com.
Savage Worlds and all associated logos and trademarks
are copyrights of Pinnacle Entertainment Group.
Used with permission.
Pinnacle makes no representation or warranty as to
the quality, viability, or suitability for purpose of this product.
©2015 GG Studio, Hope & Glory and all related marks and logos
are trademarks of GG Studio.
All Rights Reserved.
www.ggstudio.eu
Welcome to a new world...
On the 21st of October 1852, the citizens of London and Paris were
awed at the sight of the western sky turning suddenly a strange shade
of purple and red.
The first seismic shocks were felt all over the world in the following
hours, and by the dawn of the 23rd of October, the giant waves hit the
coasts of Europe. In the evening of the same day, while the tremors
continued, catastrophic waves also hit the coasts of Asia. Whole cities,
blasted by the earthquakes, were submerged by the sea. Millions of
lives were lost.
Then the Black Rain began, washing the ruins and leaving behind a
thick layer of ashes. Dark, impenetrable clouds hid the sun, and the
Thirty Years Winter began.
In the Northern Hemisphere crops failed, snow-bound cities went up
in flames as the populations rioted and the governments tried to find a
solution, the means to survive.

One hundred years have passed now since the Catastrophe, and
humanity has survived.
In the former colonial domains of Africa and South America. In
the blasted plains of China. Among the remains of the Japanese
archipelago. In Russian palaces sealed against the howling winds of the
steppe. In the land that once was India. With sacrifice and ingenuity,
with courage and hope, new nations have crawled back from the brink
to claim the new world.
Science is a beacon to the future.

From the frozen wastes of Europe, where the mammoth roam, to the
proud Zulu Nation of Africa, from the technological wonders of the
Anglo-Indian Raj to the mist-shrouded shores of Lost America, these
are the stories of a new, strange world.
Part of the Machine
by Davide Mana
1.
Outside.
The night sky was studded with stars, streaked with pastel-colored dust
clouds. Varvara walked slowly down the path between the ice statues.
A collection of grotesques, of dwarvish saints with screaming mouths,
of lascivious Madonnas neglecting their impish children to leer at
the passer-bys. Orcs and beast-men crouched side by side with squat
dragons and howling wolves. Water dripped from the wingtips of an
angry angel. A small girl with a belligerent expression sat between the
front paws of a bear. A man of stern visage, maybe Peter the Great, sat
high on a rearing horse, wielding a sword that looked like spun glass.
The light from the bonfire lit the ice and was refracted in rainbows
that projected as pale bands across Varvara’s long coat and Persian
lamb collar. The light painted war stripes across her pale cheeks, as she
advanced in the trampled snow, holding a large leather-bound book
in her arms.
The others were there already. Vassili and Tania. Tekla, her face
concealed behind a veil after the fashion of the people in the southern
desert. Ekaterina turned to her as she joined their circle. She was almost
completely devoid of color, like an albino, and wore black as the latest
court fashion dictated. Her perfect white lips curled in a smile as she
nodded to Varvara. She held a small, thick volume between her white-
nailed, beringed hands. Many, Varvara noticed, had already consigned
their offerings to the Flame, but the ghostlike woman said “I waited for
you,”, showing her book.
Varvara smiled, concealing her embarrassment behind a curtain of
well-rehearsed hypocrisy. “How nice of you, cousin,” she whispered.
Ekaterina tilted her head on one side, a long strand of snow-white
hair escaping her black wolf fur cap, spilling like milk on her padded
shoulder and on the front of her black hussar-style jacket. “Shall we?”
she asked courtly.
They advanced towards the Flame, and the others made way for them.
The heat slapped Varvara in the face. The bonfire was crackling
and roaring, specks the color of amber escaping to the heavens. She
contemplated the Flame for a moment, the piled books burning and
crumpling as the heat consumed them.
The mountain of books in front of her collapsed, erupting a cloud
of fiery ashes. It takes so much time to completely burn a book,
she thought.
By her side, Ekaterina lifted her small volume high, bowing her head,
and then dropped it in the flames. “Yevgeny Baratynsky,” she said, her
voice ringing in the night. “The Collected Poems.”
Murmurs came from all of those around. Someone clapped discreetly.
Varvara felt their eyes on her as, with a deep intake of breath, she held
her book in both hands, arms outstretched in front of her. “Charles
Lyell,” she proclaimed, her voice loud and clear. “Principles of Geology:
being an attempt to explain the former changes of the Earth’s surface,
by reference to causes now in operation.”
The heat scalded her hands as she dropped the big book in the Flame,
and watched its pages curl and the leather of its cover crack and
blacken. Someone gasped. Many applauded.
“How wonderful,” Ekaterina whispered, in ecstasy, putting her hand
on Varvara’s arm.
Varvara turned on her heels. The Tower was absolute blackness
bookended by strips of night sky. For the first time, the awareness of
where she was penetrated her conscience, and she swayed slightly.
Then she hid her hands inside her long sleeves, and proceeded more
steadily, the sense of vertigo gone.
Behind her, her cousins stood around the Flame, celebrating the
Feeding of Knowledge. It was a pity nobody could see it, she thought,
like a beacon in the distance. But only snow and ice stretched forever
in every direction, surrounding the Imperial Palace of Tsaritsyn like a
besieging army, and the flame burning on this platform, one hundred
yards up the side of Saint Andrew Tower.
The statues watched her go.
The armored steel door slid back and let her in again.
When it closed, it shut out the icy breeze, but not the darkness.
2.
“And so it worked?”
In the mirror, Varvara smiled. “Like a wonder. Iliya and Konstantin
did such an excellent job. Please give my best to both of them.”
“Of course.” The reflection of Mariya’s grinning face was a heart
shape framed in brown curls beside Varvara’s pale oval. She was
brushing Varvara’s hair, one hundred strokes from the crown of
her head down to the small of her back. The girl would lift a
strand of Varvara’s fair tresses in her long-fingered hand, and run
the silver brush slowly down its length, carefully. It was part of
the nightly ritual.
Surrounded by pale blue gaslights, the mirror was the only source
of illumination in the darkness of Varvara’s boudoir. It cast stark
shadows against the walls.
“And why should they have found out, after all?” Varvara asked.
She traded a savvy look with her maid. “They were so impressed
by the bulk and the title of the thing, they just stared with open
mouths while it burned.”
Mariya laughed, and Varvara joined her.
“You should not show such disregard for traditions,” Mariya
admonished her, still laughing.
“Traditions! The burning of books to remember the first long
winters after the nisproverzheniye.” Varvara snorted in a very
unladylike fashion. “It is far better to burn blank paper than
ancient wisdom, no matter what the Old Father said.”
Mariya beamed, cherishing her mistress’ outburst of seditious
speech. “You should join the Anarchist Commune,” she said, her
hand moving slowly down Varvara’s hair.
Varvara arched an eyebrow. “Oh, milaya devushka! And become
one of your playmates?”
Mariya gave her a naughty look in the mirror. Her mistress
gestured for her to put down the brush, and stood, with a sigh.
“The anarchists don’t please me,” she said. “They’re so dark and
it’s so easy to forgive them.”
Mariya just giggled and moved to the adjoining room. She poured
herself a large cup of wine from a decanter.
“What have you been up to, of late?” Varvara asked, following her.
“We’ve been to the rabochiye caves, yesterday night,” the maid
said conspiratorially.
“Mixing with the trogs?”
Varvara was studying critically her maid, her uniform, her stance.
She stood in front of the mosaic that dominated the whole wall,
portraying a reunion of Byzantine saints. The black silhouette
of the girl contrasted starkly with the colors and the gold of the
mosaic, much as her spicy expression contrasted with their long,
sad saintly faces.
“Konstantin acquired some of their overalls, somewhere, and we
joined the down shift. There is a service passage…”
“Indeed!”
Mariya stoppered the decanter and put it back in its place in the
wine cabinet. “Yes, and we spent two hours…”
“Pretending to be of the worker class.” Varvara ran her fingers
through the maid’s hair. “How romantic.”
“I brought you a souvenir…”
With an impish grin, Mariya slipped two fingers in her neckline,
and fished out an egg-shaped pill the size of the tip of her thumb.
It was the color of ash. Her eyes in Varvara’s, she crumbled it in
the cup.
Varvara stared in silence, as Mariya arched her eyebrows, brought
the cup to her lips and drank a long gulp of wine.
“Care to join me?” the maid asked, offering her the remainder
of the wine. Varvara took the cup and looked down into its ruby
depths.
“And to think you were such a sweet girl,” she said with a smirk.
Mariya chuckled. “You taught me a lot, mistress,” she whispered.
“Drink up!”
Holding the glass cup in both hands, Varvara brought it up to her
lips and drank down the wine, in a single gulp, the bitter aftertaste
sparkling on her tongue. A few drops escaped from the corner of
her mouth, red marks on her white lace nightgown.
“Like blood,” Mariya said dreamily, her fingers brushing the
stains.
With a sigh, Varvara handed the cup back. With her thumb, she
wiped the wine drops off her chin.. “What now?”
The other girl licked her lips. “We won’t have to wait for long,” she
smiled wickedly.
3.
Varvara woke up at the sound of somebody hitting on her door
with a hammer. The steel ringed like a bell as she called for Mariya
to go and open. She was feeling awfully, her temples throbbing with
the same tempo of the metal-on-metal beating.
As the pounding became faster, she cursed under her breath, pulled
on a dressing gown and went to the door herself. Her legs felt like
lead, her back ached, her eyes burned. Did the rabochiye feel like
this every day? And where was silly, delicious Mariya? Where the
palace servants?
There was a big man in front of her door. Bushy red beard, a severe
bear-fur greatcoat. He had a black metal hand, the one that he had
been using to knock. There was a golden two-headed eagle on his
belt-buckle.
“Varvara Vorovina Boleslavskaia?”
Like that. No princess, no your grace, no nothing.
She stared him in the face. There was a badge on his lapel. There
were two men in Palace Guard livery at his back. Both carried stun-
batons.
She moved away, and let the man in.
“You wait here,” he said to the guards.
“How can I assist the Guard?” she asked.
He was looking around, not so much with curiosity as if making an
inventory of her apartments.
“Do you know this woman?”
He handed her a portrait of Mariya. Taken years before. The girl
looked straight ahead, serious, her features stiff, formal. None of
the softness that had underscored her beauty of late.
“Of course,” Varvara said, coldly. “Mariya Gerusova, my maid and
companion. Is she in some kind of trouble?”
The silly girl. Her Anarchist leanings and her wild character
catching up with her.
The man handed her another picture. Varvara needed a moment to
figure out what it represented.
“The worst sort of trouble,” the man said, his metal hand snapping
open and shut, with the sound of a snare.
Varvara’s head swam, and she felt a hand ripping her stomach. It
was Mariya, staring emptily at forever, her head surrounded by a
pool of liquid darkness, a gash running across her throat.
Varvara closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Where…?”
“Sixth level, south service corridor.”
The servants’ quarters.
“She was found this morning. A little past four.”
Varvara studiedhis face. “I never met you,” she said. “I thought I
knew everyone at court.”
His metal hand opened and closed. “It is my job to be unknown.”
But he pushed his good hand in his coat, and presented her with an
official warrant. Special Investigator von-Sternberg.
“Why a special investigator?” she asked.
“Had Gerusova been in your service long?”
“Five years. Why is the Ochrana investigating the death of a lady’s
maid?”
She knew a dozen good reasons, from her politics to her promiscuity.
“Murder, not just death. And she was the personal servant to the
Czar’s second cousin.”
Varvara huffed, dropping the two daguerreotypes. “Don’t be
ridiculous.”
“Were the two of you intimate?”
She turned at him. “Are you asking if I took my maid to bed?” she
asked back.
“No. I speak of the sort of intimacy that leads to personal
confidences.”
Varvara blushed, surprising herself, and he went on. “Did she reveal
details about her life? Friends, lovers, family?” he paused, his eyes
darting around the room. And then, “It’s usually one of them,” he
added. “Someone close.”
Varvara turned her back on Sternberg and took two deep breaths. The
glass cup from last night was still on top of the wine cabinet. Her heart
accelerated. She weighed her options, in a blink. “There is… there was
a man. I only know his name, Iliya. Another servant, I guess.”
He nodded, jotting down the name on his pad.
“Their relationship?”
Varvara shrugged. “A paramour,” she said. “A servant’s romance.”
Sternberg nodded again. “When did you last see Mariya Gerusova?”
“Last night, before I retired.”
“Time?”
“Midnight, more or less,” she lied.
“Did the girl say anything?” The metal hand clacked shut. “Did she
smoke opium before she left?”
Varvara couldn’t remember. Probably yes. But after the elixir had
taken hold of them, most of the night had passed in a blur.
“Are you asking me if I shared my opium with my maid?”
“Did you?”
“What if I did?”
His metal hand kept snapping open and closed.
“Did you share anything else?”
Varvara had learned early how to look and sound outraged. Being
second cousin to Czar Vladimir did have its perks. “I won’t have
any more of this. Get out of my sight before I summon my father’s
Cossacks and have you kicked out!”
His eyes blazed, steel-blue and cold.
“I am acting on his Majesty’s orders,” he said.
Then he stopped, and caressed his copper-colored beard with his
good hand. She wondered what was going on behind those eyes.
He bowed, clicking his heels together. “I will leave you now,” he
said. “I might need to… interview you again, later.”
“Keep me informed about the developments of your investigation,”
she said dryly. “Have a good day, Investigator.”
“You too, Varvara Vorovina Boleslavskaia.”
4.
The great staircase connected the Tens upstairs, the noble quarters,
with the plaza that occupied level nine. It spiraled along the wall of
the Tower of Saint Nicholas, wide enough for four horses to climb it
abreast, the steps shallow and wide. Gates opened along the staircase,
leading to common rooms, small gardens, utility spaces. The Tower was
a vertical city, and the staircase was its main thoroughfare. It was also
a wonderful, useless affectation. It was faster and more comfortable to
zip up and down inside an elevator, of course. And yet the staircase
provided the space for the sort of social encounters that helped keep
the court alive. Anyone could arrange a secret meeting or a tryst in a
private alcove, an exchange of whispers in a conservatory shrouded
in shadows. But for political debate, there were the steps between the
fourteenth and fifteenth floor. For matters artistic, the place was on the
landing of the seventeenth floor, where both the portrait gallery and
the Imperial Theater were housed. And issues of honor could be settled
on the final step to the ninth floor, where aristocracy stopped and the
servants’ quarters began. And yet for all the bustle and the activity, the
stairs granted a certain invisibility, a certain discreet loneliness that
was what Varvara needed right now.
She stepped down the last step, and looked around. The plaza was a
fashionably disreputable place to be. She recognized a dozen faces, and
she was sure they recognized her. She looked around, trying to get her
bearings. She had been here only once, with Mariya, two years before,
when the girl had started seeing her anarchic friends.
She thought she recognized a passage, and walked hastily in that
direction, pulling her cloak closer.
Varvara was sure poor Iliya was already being interviewed by
Investigator von-Sternberg or one of his minions. Not that she cared.
But the stupid prole and his friend Konstantin still had her original
Lyell. She had realized about one hour after von-Sternberg had left
her apartments. She had settled in a couch, having dialed an infusion
to calm her nerves, when the empty space on her shelf reminded her
suddenly that Mariya’s friends still had the original from which the
burned copy had been made.
And should the Ochrana find it, there would be more questions, and
the sort of scandal that would not make her popular, but only get her
cast out of the Palace.
Varvara skirted the great statue of Czar Nicholas the first, the Little
Father, architect of the modern Russian Empire. She felt the statue’s
eyes on her, the dead emperor stern and stiff in his uniform. The old
soldier would not approve, she thought, what the court had become in
the century since his death.
Commoners were milling around, minding their own business, or
their masters’. She sought one of the relay alcoves to the west of the
plaza, pulled up her cloak so that it would not hinder her movements,
and took one of the slides down into the servants’ quarters.
5.
Mariya’s friend Konstantin lived in one of the warrens on the third
level. This had originally been the old Tsaritsin Imperial residence,
that Nicholas had incorporated as the cornerstone of the new Imperial
palace. Buttresses and pylons had been added to the old building, to
help the tired walls as they sustained the weight of the Tower.
The corridors were dark, the gaslights set to burn as low as possible
to save fuel, and set far between.. The forced air system rattled in the
background. The air was stale, smelling of cooked food and tobacco
and a number of other unsavory aromas. The heat and humidity were
insufferable.
Varvara ran a hand along the wet wall, searching for a landmark tablet
or any sort of indication. The last time she had been here, Mariya had
been her guide, and Varvara had other things going through her head,
and her veins, to remember clearly the road they had taken.
Steps sounded behind her. “Are you lost, devochka?”
She turned, looked the man in the face, let her cloak fall open. Her
curved dagger glinted in the half-light.
The man lifted his hands, taking a step back. “No, no…” he said.
She stepped forward. “Wait. Konstantin. You know him? He’s one of
the engineers.”
The man nodded, slowly. “Yes.”
“Where do I find him?”
The man scratched his beard. “I don’t think I remember…”
From underneath the cloak, she pulled a black-gloved hand , holding a
silver piece between thumb and forefinger. “Does this help?”
“Go to the south wing, the checkerboard corridor. Konstantin’s place is
the third door on your right. But he won’t be there at this time.”
She tossed him the coin. He fumbled and it dropped to the floor. By
the time he picked it up, she was gone.
.
6.
Konstantin’s one-room apartment was in such a state of disarray, that
for a moment Varvara thought the place had been broken in and
ransacked. There were books piled everywhere, on the table, on the
chairs, on the bed, on the floor, leaving only narrow lanes for passage.
Trapped between the books, or between of their pages, were sheets of
paper, alone or in wads, their corners waving idly as she passed. Glasses
of various shape and size rested on top of the piles. She tried to lift one.
It was stuck to the underlying book cover. In some of the glasses were
forks, spoons, knives, all of them dirty. But also pencils and pens, small
balls of crumpled paper, spent matches, crooked and rusty nails. Some
of the glasses rested on dirty plates, or inside dirty bowls. As Varvara
moved around, her nose itching for the mix of unpleasant smells, her
foot hit an empty bottle, sending it rolling until it stopped against the
leg of a chair. On the back of the chair was draped a well-worn jacket.
There were more clothes lumped underneath.
But no, she remembered, the place had been like this that time too.
Konstantin was not a stickler for order and cleanliness. Unusual, in an
engineer.
One of the narrow paths led to a large bed inside an alcove. It was
unmade, cushions heaped at one end, the sheets tumbled at the other
end. A small crate served as nightstand. It held an overflowing ashtray,
a short stub of a candle, more books, a pen-knife, a glass filled with
buttons, pins, beads, brass nibs, and other small objects.
Varvara, hands on her hips, took a long look around. She sighed.
Finding her book in this mess would be nigh impossible. She picked a
volume from the top of one pile, one that was, for size and weight, close
to her copy of Lyell’s. She flicked the pages, grunted, and put it back.
She tried the next, that turned out to be, if possible, more obscene than
the first.
Of course, she thought, if she was unable to find it, it was highly
unlikely the Ochrana would. Or not? She remembered von-Sternberg
icy glaze. The Ochrana had the time and the resources to go through
this whole cumulation of rubbish, and have every single item listed
and cross-referenced.
She toyed with the idea of setting the place on fire, and dismissed it:
the last thing she wanted was being caught in the pits during a fire.
And yet.
Varvara studied the single gas lamp providing a weak illumination to
the room. It was the old-fashioned model still used in the lower levels.
She just turned the flame down until it flicked out and died. Then she
opened the gas at its maximum. In the dark, she felt her way to the
door, and closed it behind her.
7.
Mariya’s apartment was on the eight level. Varvara stopped on her way
back to light and clear air. As expected, the place had been searched,
and the Guard seal was placed on the door.
Varvara let two chattering chambermaids pass, holding their curious
stare until they blushed and averted their eyes, and then broke the seal
and went in.
Varvara turned on her heels, taking in the whole of the room. A large
bed, a dresser, a chest of drawers and a wardrobe, each one resting in
a niche in a wall, so that the center of the room was occupied by a low
table, and two couches. The place was clean and clear, in perfect order,
a vague reminiscence of some kind of perfume in the air. She went into
the small bathroom. Here perfume was stronger, and there was an oily
residue in the sink.
Varvara wondered if the Ochrana had used one of their sniffers. The
place was so ordered and pristine, that it seemed likely.
She checked the drawers and the dresser. Nothing looked out of place.
She marveled at the variety of cosmetics. In the wardrobe, she found
two of her old dresses, that she had ordered Mariya to have burned.
They had been altered and fitted. They had lost their elegance, and
acquired a certain vulgar charm. There was also a third gown, a garish
Indian silk number, that Mariya had evidently ‘borrowed’. Varvara
caught herself smiling at the thought. She noticed another gown,
bright scarlet, that was clearly above Mariya’s means, and a black jacket
of a distinct military cut. A witness to Mariya’s passion for play-acting
and mixing in inappropriate circles.
On the floor of the wardrobe, she found a polished wood box, a small
burnished brass key resting in the lock. The lid opened when she tried
to pick it up. The box contained a handful of coins, a case with an
opium pipe, and a small bag of jewels. She found a pair of earrings
she had thought lost forever. She placed the stuff back in the box and
instinctively turned the key in the lock. It would not turn.
Varvara pulled it out. It was evident, now that she was handling it, that
it did not fit the lock. It was a stubby sort of key, heavy, made of dark
metal. Weighing it in her hand, Varvara looked around the room.
“Found something that we missed?”
She turned sharply. von-Sternberg was standing on the threshold, his
mechanical hand doing that snare-snap thing.
Varvara put her hands on her hips in unladylike fashion, slipping
the key in her pocket under cover of the cloak. “I’m here for my
dress,” she said.
She leaned into the closet and pulled out the stolen gowns. It rustled
against the other clothes hanging in there. The jet and silver sequins
glittered in the gaslight.
“You ignored the seal,” he said.
“What seal?”
He walked up to her. Without averting his gaze, he put his mechanical
hand on the closet door. “Anything else you need to recover?”
She shook her head. He shut the door.
“Come,” he said. “I’ll see you back to your apartments.”
“I can take care of myself,” Varvara said, piqued.
“That I see, Varvara Vorovina Boleslavskaia.”
He bowed slightly, and gestured for her to precede him. She draped the
gown on her left arm, and walked out.
The few corridor lights were shifting to darker amber, to signal
the beginning of the night cycle. “The elevator is this way,” von-
Sternberg said.
They followed the corridor for about fifty paces, and stopped in front
of the sliding doors of one of the service elevators. “The lower levels
are dangerous,” he said.
“It’s not my first time,” she chuckled.
“You should listen to him, little sister.”
They turned.
There were five men, crowding the corridor behind them. They wore
dirty overalls and breather masks. They carried tools: hammers,
crowbars. One had a length of chain.
von-Sternberg stepped in front of her. “This elevator is occupied,”
he said.
The man at the front of the group shrugged. “We are off shift,” he said.
“We just want to get home.”
The investigator pointed along a side passage. “There is another
elevator, fifty yards from here.”
“We want to use this one,” the other replied. His companions nodded
and grinned their agreements, coming closer, crowding them.
A cold spike of panic ran through Varvara’s spine. The men were
shuffling closer, their smell of grease and sweat chocking her. Their
faces hidden by the masks gave them the look of goblins. They were
hunched, bulky, squat. Like proles. Workers from the sublevels. From
the caves. She took a step back, her shoulders brushing against the
elevator door. With a chime, the doors opened.
Growling, the workers attacked them.
von-Sternberg pushed her back inside the cabin, and parried a crowbar
aimed at his head. He maneuvered so that he would completely block
the door, but one worker was faster than his massive frame suggested.
He ducked under the investigator’s arm, and lunged for Varvara.
She lifted her arm to fend-off the attack, and felt a sharp pain in the
forearm. Then von-Sternberg was on her attacker, grabbing him
from behind with his iron hand. The mask was ripped away and for a
moment she stared into a pair of green eyes, and a face that had none
of the roughness associated with the proles. The man shoulderedout of
von-Sternberg’s grasp and stepped out of the elevator just as the doors
slid closed with another chiming sound.
With a grimace, von-Sternberg lifted his artificial arm. His hand was
contracting uncontrollably, so he turned it off. Varvara saw there was
a dagger stuck where metal joined flesh. The investigator pulled it out,
and turned it between the fingers of his good hand.
“Not a worker’s tool,” he said.
It had a stubby blade, and a curved handle in the shape of an eagle’s
head. It reminded her of something, but she suddenly felt dizzy.
“You are bleeding,” von-Sternberg said.
She looked down at her arm. The gown resting on it was shredded and
a large glistening stain was spreading over the cloth.
Varvara cursed. Then blackness swallowed her up.
8.
The new maid aunt Theodora had provided was named Nina. She was
thin and pretty, with dark brown hair and freckles. She was also as shy
as a mouse and as boring as a chess match.
Now she came in as pale as a ghost. “An official gentleman asks to see
you, mistress,” she whispered.
“An official gentleman? Nice.”
The poor girl just stared and trembled.
“Well, show him in, you silly girl!”
“But…”
“Go on. It’s not the first time I see a man in my bedroom!”
The girl turned five shades of purple and ran out, only to come back
in a minute, still blushing, and introduced Investigator von-Sternberg.
“You can leave us,” Varvara hoped the girl would have the spirit to go
on and eavesdrop at the door.
“I received your note,” von-Sternberg said. He held a card between
thumb and forefinger of his metal hand.
“I can see it shook you to the core,” she said, glancing at him.
“Your request is not acceptable.”
She sat up, her back straight. “Not acceptable? Having my apartment
guarded day and night is not acceptable.”
“You were stabbed.”
“I’m recovering.” She lifted her bandaged arm. “And the rest of me
works just fine, and I need to exercise it. I need my privacy, and my
leisure.”
“They might try again.”
Varvara huffed. “It was just a bunch of workers. Half drunk on fatigue.
Probably coming down from sixteen hours of chemically enhanced
hard work. Volatile, you know.”
“They were there for you.”
She had come at the same conclusion, of course, but she would rather
not have Cousin Vladimir’s secret police sniffing around her place
anyway. “Have you been able to apprehend them, investigator?”
von-Sternberg’s shoulder lifted slowly and then dropped. “My men are
working…”
Varvara smirked. “A no would be enough, thank you. Is this why you
show so much concern about my health? Because you need to show
you are doing something?”
He straightened his back. “We will get them.”
“Oh, I am absolutely sure. Are you using sniffers on them?”
“I am not at liberty to discuss details.”
“And yet it was my life, you say, they were seeking to end.”
“Every evidence suggests it.”
“Why? You think this is related to poor Mariya’s killing?”
“It appears obvious.”
“Why?”
“You should tell me.”
She laughed out loud, and went for the silver bell on her bed-stand. Its
jingling summoned the new girl.
“Investigator von-Sternberg is leaving,” Varvara said, theatrically
stifling a yawn.
The servant curtsied, and turned to the guest, waiting for him to move.
“My man remains out of your door,” he said, “until further
developments.”
Varvara waved him out. “Discuss the details with my maid. See what
her tastes are on the matter. If we have to suffer this invasion, she might
as well find a way to have fun.”
The girl blushed, and led von-Sternberg out.
The maid was back in five minutes, carrying a tray. “Your medications,
mistress,” she whispered.
Varvara swallowed two pills with a glass of water. “Want to try some?”
she winked at the girl, shaking the bottle.
The poor creature babbled something, picked up the tray and ran
away. Varvara sighed. It would take years to turn pretty Nina into a
serviceable companion.
9.
Aunt Theodora herself paid a visit on the following day, to check on
her favorite niece’s health and exchange rumors. She settled herself
on a stuffed chair she had Nina place by Varvara’s bedside. Then she
dismissed the girl.
The two women traded pleasantries. Varvara offered her aunt a small
glass of laudanum, and the older woman accepted with a wink of
complicity.
“Leon’s daughter, Tamara,” the old woman said, opening the first salvo
of gossip, “apparently got involved with a man from the Company.”
Varvara arched an eyebrow. “Involved?”
Third cousin Tamara Leonova had always been a boring little soldier
girl. The idea of her having an affair, and with a foreigner of the British
persuasion, and in all likelihood a commoner of mixed blood, was
unprecedented.
Theodora chuckled. “Not that way, alas. Something or other involving
wild beasts, way West.”
“Now you make it sound absolutely obscene, Tante Theo!”
Theodora laughed. “Don’t I? But no, it was all blood and thunder…”
Varvara laughed in turn.
“But she spoke quite highly of her sky pirate friend.”
“A sky pirate no less? Tamara is making up for lost time.”
“Oh, she’s absolutely smitten, believe me!” She lit a small cigar. “Anyway,
can you imagine the sort of things her new friend could provide?” She
pointed at the brown bottle on the nightstand. “They have real poppies
out there, you know, in the Company dominions.”
Varvara sighed, relaxing on her pillow. “Ours are real, too, you know?”
Her haunt snorted. “Hothouse flowers. Hydroponics vegetables.
Processed meats. That’s not real to me!”
“Would you rather eat freshly-killed mammoth steaks and boiled
roots? Like the mujiks?”
Theodora was unfazed. “You wouldn’t know, poor thing, but there was
a time when we still got fresh supplies from the outside. We did not
live holed up in here all the time!”
“I was outside less than one week ago, for the Ritual of the Flame.”
“Were you, dear? But that’s just a walk on a balcony. I meant going
outside proper.”
“That’s for soldiers and sky captains,” Varvara shrugged.
“Well, I was out there, you know!”
Varvara laughed. “Oh, I can really imagine you, a bold wilderness
explorer!”
“Disrespectful little minx! There were hunting parties, back then,
outside. Casimir was very fond of them.”
“So fond of them he was killed while hunting the most dangerous
game, out in the snow.”
The old aunt crossed herself, in a rather perfunctory way. “You are
cynical today, my dear.”
“And you wax nostalgic.” Varvara picked the cigar from her aunt’s lips
and took a short puff. “And if you are really interested, they still have
hunting parties, in the lower levels, or so I’m told. I got invited once,
but it sounded too rough even for me.”
“The lower levels are dangerous,” Theodora replied. “Look at what
happened two nights ago! A whole wing up in flames. Which just goes
to prove what I always said: the unwashed classes, my dear, cannot be
trusted with technology!”
“Wasn’t it in the engineers’ wing?” Varvara asked nonchalantly.
“Exactly! Just think, those people are in charge ofmaintenance of the
Tower! Two dead, and the whole palace could have blown up to high
heaven!”
“There are blowout preventers in the gas system,” Varvara said. “Even
you should have learned that, way back in your school days.”
Theodora shook her head, grimacing. “Imagine being caught there!
The dark corridors, the flames, the smoke!” She blew out a large cloud
of white smoke, as if to underscore her words, and stubbed out her
cigar. “You could have been trampled to death, suffocated by smoke,
killed in the press or burned alive.”
“I was five levels higher,” Varvara said.
“And a great deal of good it did to you! It’s such a disreputable thing,”
she added, “for a member of the znat’, to be stabbed in a workers’ brawl
in the servants’ quarters! I wonder what you were up to. Not that I have
to stretch my imagination…”
Theodora had finally got where she had wanted to be from the start,
ready to collect a new batch of saucy gossip. She extracted a silver cigar
case from the folds of her gown, and lit it expertly. “I want the details!”
she puffed.
“I assure you I was completely dressed, Tante Theo,” Varvara chuckled.
“And you were in the company of a dashing young hussar!”
“Not exactly. You ever heard of a man from cousin Vladimir’s secret
police? A Special Investigator von-Sternberg?”
Theodora puffed silently on her cigar for a moment. “No, never heard
of him.” She eyed her suspiciously. “What are your dealings with the
Ochrana?”
Varvara shrugged.
“I was there to recover a gown I had lent to poor Mariya,” she said. “And
the Special Investigator was kind enough to see me to the elevator.”
“Silly of you. Risking the servants’ quarters. Oh, I know, I know,”
Theodora stopped Varvara’s protests with a wave of her hand, her cigar
between first and second finger. “There’s a lot of stories about the sort
of shenanigans you and your friends usually get up to in the lower
quarters. But it was silly going there alone. And what for? A dress!”
She shook her head, tapping ashes on the carpet. “And the simple idea
of lending one of your gowns to a servant!”
“I could not have her around naked all the time, could I?”
They both laughed. “If your poor mother were still alive…” Theodora
said in mock disapproval.
“She’d be too busy having fun of her own to worry about my pastimes,”
Varvara grinned. “And talking of gowns,” she said suddenly, following
the inspiration of the moment, “I was planning to have a new ball
gown made, to replace the one that was damaged in the accident…”
“Oh, what a wonderful idea, dear! I am sure I can suggest you the best
milliner on level nine…”
“I never doubted you had the right person for me, chère Tante . But I
was wondering… There’s a gown I saw,” she shrugged, “I don’t know,
probably on New Years’ ball. The model’s been haunting me for months
now, but I can’t remember who wore it.”
Theodora leaned closer. “Do tell!”
“Red as sin, strapless,” Varvara said. “With a full skirt and a bustière of
silk satin, decorated with small rosettes and silver thread.”
Theodora’s eyes unfocused for a moment. “I think I remember it,” she
said finally. “But the name of the wearer escapes me.”
“And I was counting on your wonderful memory!”
“Oh, but it will come to me, no doubt! And probably at the most
embarrassing moment!”

Two days later, three hours into the night cycle, Varvara slipped in
Nina’s uniform and, her pale hair hidden by a bonnet and a bundle
of sheets under her arm, rode a lift down to the eighth level. Young
Nina was fast asleep on the couch, probably enjoying the most vivid
dreams of her life, and the guard by the door was by now so used to
see the shy servant come and go, her eyes downcast, that Varvara had
no trouble leaving her apartment without challenge. In a few minutes
she dutifully dropped her bed linen in the laundry, slipping the token
inside her cuff, and then hastened to the residential wing.
Mariya’s apartment had been searched again, and not by a sniffer. The
drawers were in disarray, a corner of the carpet was turned up as if
somebody had stumbled in it. The wardrobe door hung open, and the
red dress was gone.
It took Varvara about half an hour to locate the hidden lock.
The side of the bed’s headboard swung open, revealing a hidden
compartment, six inches wide and fifteen inches deep. It contained a
bundle of thin copybooks, tied together with a blue ribbon, and two
small metal boxes.
Varvara stripped a cover from one of the pillows and slipped the stuff
in. Then, she hastened back to her apartment.
She whispered some greeting to the guard, keeping her eyes low as
she shuffled through her door. Nina was still out cold on the couch, a
beatific smile on her face. Hoping she had not overdosed the poor girl,
Varvara retreated to her bedroom.
10.
The first box contained, unsurprisingly, an assortment of substances.
A paper bag with five tablets of productivity elixir from the rabochiye
caves, two vials of what was probably some military-grade enhancer
and, surprisingly, two vials of panatseya.
Varvara was shocked at how shocked she felt. Mariya’s penchant for
experimenting with her body chemistry was one of the things that had
fascinated and amused her, and that she had actually encouraged. And
yet, the idea of a commoner using the Barchenko enhancers reserved
to the aristocracy, caused her an outrage that surprised her.
It was a matter of privilege, reserved to the members of the
aristokratyia, who were usually first dosed with panatseya in their
early teens. Aleksandr Barchenko, celebrated as the Great Father, in
1890, had devised the cocktail of wide-spectrum antibiotics, tonics
and metabolism enhancers. Originally designed to give the men and
women moving out of the cities in fire an edge against the cold and
the plagues that swept the land, further reformulations had turned it
into the miracle drug that gave the Russian aristokratyia its elàn. A
member of the servant class injecting panatseya? It was unheard of,
the sole idea a subversion of the natural social order.
Suppressing a wave of cold fury at the dead girl, Varvara added the
drugs to her personal collection, and moved to the second, smaller
box. This too contained vials, each labeled with a neat number code.
The content of the glass tubes was obviously blood. There were seven
samples, and two unused vials. A mystery.
She undid the blue ribbon. Seven thin copybooks, the pages crowded
with small, neat handwriting. Varvara had never guessed that her
companion could read and write – but soon that proved the least of
surprises/a very minor surprise. If she had expected a maid’s soppy
diaries, Varvara had to change her mind. M.’s thoughts held very little
romanticism..
11.
The first box contained, unsurprisingly, an assortment of substances.
A paper bag with five tablets of productivity elixir from the rabochiye
caves, two vials of what was probably some military-grade enhancer
and, surprisingly, two vials of panatseya.
Varvara was shocked at how shocked she felt. Mariya’s penchant for
experimenting with her body chemistry was one of the things that had
fascinated and amused her, and that she had actually encouraged. And
yet, the idea of a commoner using the Barchenko enhancers reserved
to the aristocracy, caused her an outrage that surprised her.
It was a matter of privilege, reserved to the members of the
aristokratyia, who were usually first dosed with panatseya in their
early teens. Aleksandr Barchenko, celebrated as the Great Father, in
1890, had devised the cocktail of wide-spectrum antibiotics, tonics
and metabolism enhancers. Originally designed to give the men and
women moving out of the cities in fire an edge against the cold and
the plagues that swept the land, further reformulations had turned it
into the miracle drug that gave the Russian aristokratyia its elàn. A
member of the servant class injecting panatseya? It was unheard of,
the sole idea a subversion of the natural social order.
Suppressing a wave of cold fury at the dead girl, Varvara added the
drugs to her personal collection, and moved to the second, smaller
box. This too contained vials, each labeled with a neat number code.
The content of the glass tubes was obviously blood. There were seven
samples, and two unused vials. A mystery.
She undid the blue ribbon. Seven thin copybooks, the pages crowded
with small, neat handwriting. Varvara had never guessed that her
companion could read and write – but soon that proved the least of
surprises/a very minor surprise. If she had expected a maid’s soppy
diaries, Varvara had to change her mind. M.’s thoughts held very little
romanticism.
12.
How much had she ignored about her companion!
Seen through Mariya’s jaundiced eyes, their relationship had been
a travesty, a game the servant had played on her mistress. It was
pretty obvious, from the entries in the third and fourth of the seven
notebooks, that Varvara herself was often mentioned with the code-
name ‘V’. A hare-brained wanton and a weakling, ready to fall for any
new temptation.

V is a heartless shlyukha. Only opium and scandals. Just like T. She think
she’s toying with me. This will be so much fun.

That’s how Mariya presented her. New scandals, outrageous games,

unspeakable pleasures. The maid had been happy to offer her mistress
ample opportunities to compromise herself. She had been used for
Mariya’s amusement. And yet Varvara had enjoyed being used, she
had grown fond of the one that used her. She had thought she was in
control.

First time with an Obez’yana. Deliciously primitive. Bruised all over. V

would adore it. Maybe involve her next time.
How well had she known her! Varvara caught herself as her hand ran
to the nightstand and her small brown bottle. And she had thought
herself so stupendously wicked! In an outburst of fury, she screamed
and threw the laudanum bottle against the wall, shattering it. A dark
stain oozed down the mosaic, like a single tear on the face of white-
bearded saint Jerome.
Nina ran to her, eyes wild. “Mistress…?”
“Get away from my sight, you stupid girl!”
Nina curtsied stiffly, looking like she’d rather run away.
“Get away!” Varvara repeated.
Once alone, she stood, and started pacing on the Persian rug, anger
roaring in her ears, thoughts in a whirlwind.
What had been the girl’s purpose?
Blackmail?
Varvara could not exclude that, and yet the diaries seemed to offer
her the picture of a slightly deranged, profoundly nihilistic individual,
who had sought any means to insult and short-circuit the system.

Lack of originality, everywhere, all over the world, from time immemorial,
has always been considered the foremost quality and the recommendation
of the active, efficient and practical individual.
G: the worst enemy of life, freedom and common decencies is total
anarchy; their second worst enemy is total efficiency.
Am very efficient in my despising of common decencies, freedom and
life. If my body is temple of my soul, then am going to leave no stone of
it standing.

‘G’ as a detailed description of V. and M.’s tipsy visit to the third

level showed, was Konstantin. As the diaries progressed, Konstantin
stopped being a mentor and a romantic rebel. Soon he turned into yet
another puppet in Mariya’s hands. The couple had often visited the
workers caves under the Palace, where Mariya had enjoyed pretending
to be a prole, a rabochiye, much to her companion’s surprise and
consternation.

Chast’mashiny. Three days in the caves and am becoming part of the

machine. It suits me. No identity. G & others worried. Going native? Like
it here. Like the sense of community. Like mindless abandon in fatigue,
euphoria of the productivity boosters. No waste of time or action. Men and
women are equal. All that counts is manning the dials, keep the machine
going. No idle talk, no lies, no gossip. Everything is as is: work/work,
food/food, sleep/sleep, play/play. A whole new world without fictions. G
says rabochiye will be a new species in three generations. Want to be a
new species too. Also, G say Chelovek Naverkhu uses Barchenko’s gifts to
control people. His, ours, the proles. Only the apes are free, because they
do not depend on CN keeping them supplied. That can understand.

Chelovek Naverkhu, ‘the Man Upstairs’ was a common nickname for

Czar Vladimir, or more in general, a metaphor of power. There were
a lot of notes, increasingly technical, about Barchenko’s work and its
impact on Russian society. Many thought Barchenko’s experiments,
and the Crown’s control of the medical supplies, had provided the
Man Upstairs with the means to maintain power. Varvara herself had
experimented with withdrawal, but only once. You did not want the
supply lines to be cut. But to speak up such thoughts was of course
conductive to unpleasantness.
And yet Mariya had not just been slumming, in her quest for strange
and new, forbidden experiences. She had also gatecrashed aristokratyia
parties, with the help of the mysterious ‘T’.

Passing myself off for one of them. There is no law against it, because they
don’t think it’s possible. The fools only see skin, clothes, paint. ‘T‘ Would
not stop laughing, afterwards.

Dosed on panatseya and wearing one of her mistress’ gowns, Mariya

had been able to join even an official celebration in the Sky Hall, the
glass-domed great marble hall on the very top of the Tower, where
Czar Vladimir held court.

The Sky Hall made me dizzy, it was so big’n’crowded. So large. So

luminous. I danced, and drank champagne, but couldn’t take my eyes off
the sky. When the clouds parted and I saw the lights up there, I thought
I’d swoon. Z quite charming. And generous. T jealous.

Again with the complicity of ‘T’, Mariya had even tried to sneak on
board one of the ships of the line, but here her lower-class origins had
finally caught up with her.
Uniform fooled them, but outside is too much. Too open, unprotected.
Exposed. Expected exhilaration, instead blanked, paralyzed. T helped
me back inside. Hate showing weakness in front of them. There will be
questions. Lay low for a few days.

Should have taken something stronger, Varvara thought cruelly. But it

was at that point that the girl’s diaries took a different turn. And again
it was because of ‘T’.

Been thinking about what T hinted. Must know for sure.

Sure about what?

Varvara sat back on the couch, and picked up the sixth notebook.

Q is willing to pay for samples of the Barchenko stuff. V says this is good,
Chinese medications would level the field, free the people from the control
of the Man Upstairs. Our time in the caves now has a political purpose.
Must see Q on my own. See if can trade for help.

And so Mariya and her Anarchist friends had ended up working for
the Chinese. It was nobody’s secret that Reverend Duke Haw Bai, the
Taiping ambassador, was always willing to buy information. Nobody
admitted of ever selling anything to the apparently ageless man from
Nanking, and Varvara had often wondered idly what form of payment
he would offer. Haw Bai was a regular fixture at Vladimir’s parties, and
the subject of much gossiping. It was said he was a Reader, a mentalist
of some sort, if not a sniffer, and that he was somehow artificially
enhanced. There was talk of mysterious meetings in his suite on the
fifteenth floor but again, nobody that participated had any willingness
to talk. Not even aunt Theodora knew anything on the subject.
The fact that somehow Mariya had succeeded in gaining access to that
piqued Varvara’s interest and irritated her.
She lit a cigarette and went on reading.
13.
“Special Investigator von-Sternberg is here to see you, mistress.”
Nina was still looking at her like she expected her mistress to turn and
bite her. Varvara turned distractedly. “What?”
Nina curtsied again, by now used at finding her mistress dazed and
confused in the afternoon. “Special Investigator von-Sternberg…”
“Yes, yes. Show him in. No, wait, give me two minutes. Then let him
in, and serve tea.”
“Yes, mistress.”
Moving like a sleepwalker, Varvara collected the notebooks and
dropped them in a drawer, then sat stiffly on the couch, waiting for the
visitor to come in.
The door opened. “Special Investigator von-Sternberg, mistress.”
Varvara smiled. von-Sternberg was in his usual informal attire. He
carried a case, slung over a shoulder. He nodded to the retreating
maid, and then squinted at Varvara.
“You are still unwell,” he said.
She shook her head. “No, my condition is actually improving, and
soon I will be fine again. How can I help you? Please sit down…”
He stroked his bearded chin, but remained standing by the door. “We
have found Ilyia Volkov. You identified him as the victim’s lover.”
Varvara nodded. “Didn’t know his full name, yes.”
“He denies his involvement. Claims Mariya Gerusova was actually
the lover of a Konstantin Utkin, an engineer with notorious anarchic
leanings.”
Nina chose that moment to come in with a tray. “Tea, mistress.”
Varvara gestured vaguely for her to go on. “I’m not an invalid,” she
whispered, loud enough for everyone to hear.
von-Sternberg waited. “Is the name familiar to you?” he asked when
Nina was gone.
“Possibly. Mariya had a lot of admirers. She was rather…”
“Promiscuous?”
“I would have said sociable.”
And she used codes for names and for labeling blood samples.
“I ask because of Utkin’s apartment. It was recently destroyed. In a fire.”
Varvara poured herself a cup of tea. “That terrible accident a few days
ago?” she asked. How admirably firm was her hand, she noticed. “That
was disquieting. The whole of Tsaritsin could have blown up.”
“No accident. The fire was arranged.”
“You obviously think this was connected with Mariya’s killing.”
And of course it was. Was Sternberg here to arrest her?
Varvara was surprised noticing that she did not really care.
“It stands to reason. Considering the timing. It happened on the
same day I met you downstairs. You were searching your servant’s
apartment.”
“Was this Utkin’s place on the same level as Mariya’s?”
“No.”
“So we did not really run any risk, right?”
von-Sternberg’s smile sent a chill down her spine. “No, we didn’t.”
“And Utkin…?”
The investigator crossed his arms. “He is missing. We had one of our
psychometrysts. A sniffer, as they are called. In Utkin’s apartment.
After the event.”
“How fascinating.”
“Not as much as you may think. We found this.”
From his case he extracted a large book. “This is yours.”
He offered it to her.
Varvara stood. “It could be, yes.”
It was the Lyell book. Paper is so hard to burn, she thought. “Yes, it’s
mine.”
von-Sternberg pushed it towards her. The pages were blackened at the
margins, the cover scarred. “Take it, then.”
“It must have been…”
Varvara took the volume and hugged it, holding it against her chest. It
smelt of dust and smoke.
“Was it stolen from you? By Gerusova?”
Varvara nodded.
“You did not report it stolen.”
“No, I didn’t.”
A shrug. “And yet, it’s hard to miss.”
They stood like that for a moment.
Varvara felt like the pieces of a complicated puzzle were suddenly
clicking together. Her head spun as she contemplated the image the
puzzle offered her. It was so cruelly simple. So obvious. Varvara’s eyes
burned. She felt a single tear run down her cheek.
von-Sternberg coughed, softly. “I think I should leave you now..”
14.
What a laugh! Q’s analyses leave no doubt. Blood does not lie, and T
was right, after all. Heartless shlyukha’s matches my sample. Who would
have imagined it. Darling little sister. Explains why we enjoy so much
the same vices.

Little sister.
The man in the corridor, the one that had tried to stab her in the lift,
had called her ‘Little sister.’ Varvara sat on the couch, hugging her
burned and scarred book, and stared in the distance. Nina picked up
the tray and left the room in silence.
15.
Such was the chaos on the fifteenth floor that the Guards didn’t stop
Varvara until she was in the vast circular hall of the Chinese legation.
The great chandelier was aflame, all burners burning, like a wonderful
sphere of crystal and light. The great red and gold Taiping dragon
banner hung from a wall, staring at her through green jade eyes. People
in uniform milled around her. On the great blue and green carpet,
a single sheet of paper rested, crumpled and dirty, like an autumn
leaf. Sitting on a bench by the double door that led into the Chinese
ambassador’s personal quarters, a girl in a periwinkle silk dress sat, her
face in her hands, crying. A man wearing the Ochrana armband stood
by her, tapping his foot impatiently. Through another door, she could
see a body stretched on the ground, covered with a white sheet.
“Varvara Vorovina Boleslavskaia.”
She turned. She had opted for a straight black gown, almost classical
in its simplicity, and high-heeled shoes. Their eyes were almost level.
“We should stop meeting like this,” she said. “People will gossip.”
von-Sternberg took her by the arm and led her through a door, into
a small room that had all the appearance of having been bombed.
He righted a turned-up chair and motioned for her to sit down,
then leaned on the edge of the desk, crossing his arms. “What are
you doing here?”
“I was here to see the Reverend Duke Haw Bai.”
“He’s not here.”
She looked around. There was an uncanny mix of normalcy and
devastation. Vases had been smashed, but the books stood neatly
aligned on their shelves. The chairs had been upturned, but the desk
was in perfect order. As she watched, a pen slowly rolled on the desktop
and fell on the floor. “I was guessing he might not be available.”
“What was your business with Haw?”
Varvara smiled demurely. “That’s personal.”
“Personal is no more,” von-Sternberg replied. “This is no longer
murder. This is serious. The Empire itself--”
“I would have thought murder to be serious enough.”
He sighed, wearily. “This is espionage.”
“Mariya was working for the Taiping,” Varvara said.
“If not her, her friend Utkin was.”
“The both of them,” she said.
von-Sternberg pulled his beard. “What is your role in all this?”
Varvara shook her head. “I don’t know. I was used.”
“How did you meet Haw?”
She looked up. “What?”
He was waiting, his hand shutting rhythmically, with a metallic clang.
“Maybe I saw him at court,” she said, slowly. “I never made his
acquaintance.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I thought he could help me.”
von-Sternberg snorted. “He can barely help himself.”
“What happened?”
He shrugged. “We were getting close to him. He abandoned the palace.”
“You mean he is,” Varvara said, incredulous, “gone out?”
“Haw and some members of his entourage. They took a sled.”
She shuddered. The idea of being out there, in the cold, with nothing
around but snow and icy wind…
“What sort of help were you looking for?”
“It’s personal.”
“I repeat, personal is dead, Varvara Vorovina Boleslavskaia. This is a
matter of the State.”
“Read Mariya’s diaries,” she said, feeling suddenly very tired. “Send
your people to my apartment. They’ll find a stack of notebooks. Mariya
was very precise in taking notes.”
“Where do these diaries come from?”
She shrugged. “Does it really matter?”
He gestured to someone in the hall. A man with the red armband came
over. He was young, lean, with a scar on his cheek.
“Escort the lady to her apartment,” von-Sternberg said. “Take Yolkin
with you. There are notebooks there. Send Yolkin back with them. You
stay there, make sure the lady does not leave her place.”
The man in the red armband clicked his heels.
Varvara stood. ”Am I under arrest?”
“It’s for your protection.”
“Of course.”
She gestured for the man to lead the way, but he bowed, and let her go
through the door first.
16.
They navigated the crowd that was gathering outside of the Taiping
legation, and soon were in a large, well lit corridor.
“This way,” the scarred one said, taking the lead. Yolkin was young,
almost a child. He glanced at Varvara while they walked to the lifts.
Was he blushing? His scarred colleague summoned a cabin.
“Varvara dorogoy!”
She turned. Her aunt Theodora was hastening towards them, one
hand grasping a fold of her ample, old fashioned skirt. The old woman
flooded her in perfume as they air-kissed three times.
“Have you any idea of what is happening, dear?” Theodora breathed.
“Some kind of disturbance,” Varvara said. “I have no idea…”
“The Chinese?” Theodora asked, stepping closer still, her voice falling
to a conspiratorial whisper. “Some weird Oriental mystery, maybe?”
The elevator chimed, and the doors opened.
“If you’ll excuse us, Tante Theo...”
Yolkin stepped in, followed by Varvara. Theodora made to follow them.
“I am afraid you can’t, madam,” the scarred one said.
Theodora’s eyes widened. “What do you mean, young man?”
She turned to Varvara. “What is going on, dear?”
Varvara took a deep breath. “It’s just…”
Theodora pulled a needler out of the fold of her skirt and shot
the Ochrana man in the neck. Then she turned and killed Yolkin
with a shot in the head. She stepped in and dialed ‘down’. Covering
Varvara with her needler, she picked the electric gun in the dead
man’s shoulder holster.
Varvara moved to avoid the pool of blood spreading on the carpet.
“So it was you,” she whispered.
“Don’t act so surprised, darling.”
“But I am. Surprised.”
And yet, somebody must have introduced Konstantin and Mariya
to Haw Bai. How could two commoners from the lower levels have
gained the confidence of an ambassador?
“You set her up from the start,” Varvara said. “Well before she met
me. You worked on her, molded her, played on her fantasies and her
weaknesses…”
“She wasn’t that weak, believe me.”
“You… Haw Bai, really, needed someone to bring him the Anarchists.
And you used Mariya, as a tool.”
“You were always so brilliant,” Theodora teased. “If only you had not
dulled your wits through self-indulgence, you’d make an excellent
investigator…”
“Only things did not go as you planned, did they?”
She retreated further, until the cold wall of the cabin pressed against
her back.
“Who would have thought that sweet Mariya would have kept a diary,”
Theodora shook her head, incredulously. She was holding the needler
in her fist, pressed against her hip. She pulled the emergency lever. The
elevator stopped with a shudder.
“This has nothing to do with Haw, doesn’t it?” Varvara said, truth
slowly dawning on her. “This has absolutely nothing to do with
espionage, with stolen Barchenko formulas, with the Man Upstairs,
with revolution and betrayal. She was… what, blackmailing you?”
Theodora laughed. “You can’t imagine what the little minx asked of
me!”
“Oh, I think I can, Tante Theo.
A sad smile crept on Varvara’s face. “Aunt Theodora,” she said, softly,
half to herself. And then, “She wanted you to acknowledge her, didn’t
she?” she said.
“Shut up!”
Varvara didn’t. It was not like she had much to lose anymore. “She
wanted her high-born mother to restore her in her rightful place,
among the aristokratyia…”
“She was a brain-dead wanton,” Theodora sneered.
“She was your daughter, Mother!”
Theodora’s mouth hung open. She lifted the needler, pointing it straight
at Varvara’s face.
“She took our blood samples. We certainly provided her with ample
opportunities, right, Mother?”
The older woman was breathing heavily, her eyes on her daughter’s.
“That’s why you had her throat slit,” Varvara went on, “isn’t it? Not for
the conspiracies, the betrayal, the spy-work. It was not even jealousy,
or suspicion. It was because of the scandal. Of the gossip, engulfing
you. Two illegitimate daughters.”
“Shut up!”
“It was back in the days of your hunting parties, I guess…”
“I said you shut up!” the older woman hissed.
“You make me!” Varvara shouted. Her voice reverberated in the metal
cabin. “Who was our father? Was it the same man? Do you actually
remember him, mother dear?”
“Of course I remember him!”
Silence hung like a dark cloud between them. Varvara’s lips formed a
perfect O. She gulped. “Casimir,” she whispered.
Lights flickered. The lift lurched in motion again.
Theodora pulled the trigger.
17.
The mechanical hand clicked open and closed, one click per second,
like clockwork.
“You will get used to it.”
Varvara turned her eye on von-Sternberg.
“Really?”
He nodded.
“Do come in. Take a seat.” She lifted her new mechanical hand. “I
heard somewhere you can’t stop bullets with your hands,” she said.
“Looks like I did it.”
von-Sternberg came closer to her bed. “You were lucky.”
“Lucky,” Varvara repeated.
Instinct. She had raised her arm to protect her face. From what doctor
Lobkovitz had explained after the operation, the needle had hit her
wrist, shattering the bone and almost completely severing her hand
The impact had slowed it down as it went through, so that when the
metal shard hit her face, it did not have the power any longer to go
through her brain. Theodora, on the other hand, had not experienced
any such problem when she had turned the weapon on herself.
Varvara gave him a lopsided smile. “Do you like my eye-patch?” she
asked, bitterness in her voice. “I’m having a whole set made, in different
colors, to match my outfits. There is this milliner, on level nine. My
aunt recommended her to me.”
She stopped and her hand contracted. Open. Closed. One second.
von-Sternberg shook his head, and sat on the chair by her bed. “It
takes time.”
“How long did it take you?”
His hand snapped. Closed. Open. One second. He arched an eyebrow.
“We cannot have absolute control,” he said.
“Strange idea, coming from you.”
“It is true.”
Varvara shook her head. “I owe you an apology,” she said. “And some
thanks.”
“Citizen safety is my first concern. And citizens should thank you. You
helped eradicating a spy ring.”
She laughed. The sound surprised her. “Sorry.”
Espionage was so much easier to explain than base, everyday animal
scandal.
“What about the Taiping man?” she asked.
“He is still missing. The official line is he was lost during a hunting
expedition.”
How apt, she thought.
Nina came through the door, carrying a tray. “Mistress, tea .”
The girl was about to leave, when Varvara called her.
“Mistress?”
Varvara turned to von-Sternberg. “I wish to recommend you our Nina,
here,” she said.
The Ochrana man turned a quizzical stare at the servant. “Really?”
Nina was pale, her hand on the doorknob. “I…”
“She is very discreet, a good observer, a fast thinker. She is absolutely
loyal. She would certainly be an asset in your organization. It’s a pity
that she can’t read.” Varvara smiled. “Because you can’t, can you, dear?”
“No more than a few words necessary for my work, mistress.”
Varvara tried to pick a cup with her mechanical hand. The cup slipped
from the steel fingers, and clattered on the plate.
“Which is why,” she went on, without looking up, “when you informed
your mistress… your true mistress, my late aunt, of poor Mariya’s
diaries, you were unable to give her any detail about the contents.”
Nina gasped. “Mistress! I never…”
“What surprises me,” Varvara said, shrugging and picking the cup with
her left hand, “is how did you know those were Mariya’s diaries and
not, who knows, some old recipes from my old cook.”
The servant shifted her weight from one foot to the other, her face
taking a stern expression. “You found them in Mariya’s room. When
you went there.”
“She is also very good at feigning sleep,” Varvara said, arching an
eyebrow, piqued. “And laudanum is like water for her, which is
something you would never suspect from looking at her.”
Nina let go of the door handle.
“I wouldn’t drink that tea, if I were you,” von-Sternberg said.
Varvara’s single eye burned. She lifted the teacup. “Is the gentleman
right, Nina?”
“You are so brilliant,” the girl smirked, “you decide for yourself.”
Varvara sighed theatrically. “I am so tired of people calling me brilliant.”
She put down the cup. “Before they try to kill me.”
von-Sternberg stood up. “I think I must go back to work.”
He stepped up to Nina and his iron hand locked around her wrist, with
a definitive sound.
“Come see me again,” Varvara said cheerfully.
“I seem to always find you in bed,” he said.
She gave him an outraged look. “Sir, your manners!”
He smiled briefly, gave Varvara a nod. Then he was gone, fuming Nina
in tow.
With a sigh, Varvara laid back on her cushion, her head spinning a
little. The doctor had said she would experience dizzy spells and
balance problems. She caressed her satin eye-patch with the tip of her
fingers.
Resting in her lap, her iron hand open and closed, like a grotesque
timepiece.
At last...
Number the Brave is a story set in the universe of “Hope & Glory”, a
game setting developed for the Savage Worlds rules.
The “Hope & Glory” universe exists for the game and for the gamers,
and what follows is a roundup of gaming information for those readers
that would like to start playing straight away. We hope the readers not
(yet?) interested in gaming will find the additional informations on the
story background interesting.

Thanks for reading, and have fun!

Panatseiya and the Russian
Chemical Obsession
“The Chemical Father of
Modern Russia”
Alexander Vasilyevich Barchenko is considered the most influent
scientist in post-Catastrophe Russia.
Starting in 1900, the young genius developed a series of treatments
whose purpose was “to enhance the survival possibilities of the Russian
population, and nurture a full adaptation to the new conditions”.
Already a large percentage of the Russian upper class was developing a
dependence on opiates to fight the psychological effects of living inside
the sealed palaces of the ‘aristokratiya’ (the so-called ‘Otshel’nik’: a mix
of claustrophobia, agoraphobia, enochlophobia).
Barchenko simply provided more effective solutions to contingent
problems.

Elixirs
Barchenko researched substances that could further improve the
conditions of the Russian survivors.
The’Barchenko Elixirs’ come in three standard classes:

Panatseiya
A cocktail of wide-spectrum antibiotics, tonics and metabolism
enhancers. It was originally designed to give the men and women
moving out of the cities in fire an edge against the cold and the plagues
sweeping the land, but further reformulations turned it into the miracle
drug that gave the Russian aristokratyia its élan.
One of Russia’s best guarded secrets, Panatseiya use is allowed only to
the aristocracy (legend has it that any commoner using it would die in
horrible pain – but this is not true), and is routinely administered to
the members of the upper class starting at age 12.
Panatseiya increases the body immunity, its resilience and resistance
to the cold, and it accelerates healing. It also increases perception and
(supposedly) extends life expectancy.
The typical traits popularly associated with Russian aristocracy (pale
skin and hair, a general thinner body than average, the cold and
detached attitude) are often attributed to the use of Panatseiya.
Panatseiya in Game. Rule wise, any Russian character with the Noble
Edge gains the benefits of the Panatseiya Edge (see below). Other
characters can buy it normally, with the permission of the GM.

Military-Grade Enhancers
In 1910 Barchenko designed a chemical cocktail to enhance the
performance of the Russian troops. Two types of enhancers are known.
They are both for military only personnel, but they can be found on
the black market with a Streetwise (-2) roll. They cost 500 $ per dose
or dispenser.
Background Enhancer. Routinely administered to the troops, it is a
lower-grade version of panatseiya (or acts like it), providing limited
protection against the cold and increased self-healing.
Rule wise it works as the Panatseiya Edge, but the effects last only for
a month.
Combat Booster. Usually injected on demand by small automatic
dispensers (responding to an increase in heart-rate), the combat
booster drug provides a temporary increase in strength, agility,
aggression and reaction times, while lowering the pain threshold. The
effect lasts a few minutes, and usually leaves the subject dazed and
exhausted afterwards.
Rule wise each dispenser comes with three doses of a drug which
raises by one dice step the Strength, Vigor and Agility of the user for
six rounds. After that time, they cause a level of Fatigue, which last
for an hour. This Fatigue is cumulative, and can lead to Exhaustion
and to death.
Productivity Enhancers
The use of productivity enhancers is limited to the worker classes, the
‘rabochiye’ living in the underground factories and corridors beneath
the aristocracy’s palaces.
The enhancers provide focus and boost energy during the long hours
of repetitive work, and provide a sense of well-being and euphoria.
In gaming terms, they allow to ignore the penalty of one level of Fatigue.
Be warned, Fatigue is still there, only “masked” by the drug, and this
can easily lead to incapacitation and death. The effect of a Productivity
Enhancer lasts for 24 hours. They cost only 30 $, but frequent use cause
dependency (the Barchenko Syndrome Hindrance).

Other Issues
Barchenko enhancers are a powerful tool for the preservation of the
status quo.
Production and distribution are an exclusive privilege of the Csar.
Palace conspiracy, workers revolts or military coups are automatically
prevented by the menace of cutting the supply of enhancers.
Many researchers outside of Russia (most notably professor Joseph
Cavor, of the Royal Academy of Sciences) have expressed the opinion
that Barchenko’s drugs might cause a progressive mutation in the Russian
population, as alterations in body chemistry are transmitted by birth.

“It is easy to imagine a near future in which the Russian social classes
have become separate species, incapable of interbreeding, and each with
its peculiar physical character.”

(Prof. J. Cavor, address at the Royal Academy of Science, April 1932).

Known negative effects of the elixirs include violent and painful

withdrawal symptoms and psychological dependence.
The recreational use of Barchenko’s elixirs has been described, and
has supposedly caused some (unconfirmed) disturbances in the
Russian palaces.
 New Edges
Panatseiya (Background Edge)
Requirements: Novice
The character, in youth, was routinely administered doses of this
special drug, developing amazing immunities. In gaming terms, he
receives +2 to all rolls to resist to cold and illness, plus he can do an
additional natural healing roll every two days.

New Hindrance
Barchenko Syndrome (Major)
The frequent use of Productivity Enhancers causes a dangerous
dependency called Barchenko Syndrome. The effects can be very
different, in a casual, unpredictable way.
A character who doesn’t get his fix must make a Fatigue check every
24 hours thereafter.
The first failed roll requires to draw a card from the Action Deck to
check what “path” the syndrome takes this time. If it is black, it is the
Fatigue Path, if it is red, it is the Violence Path.
Fatigue Path. The first failed roll makes the character Fatigued, the
second Exhausted.
Violence Path. The first failed roll makes the hero very susceptible and
irritable, which manifests in -2 to Charisma. The second failed roll
causes an actual outburst of violence. The character is considered to
have the Berserk Edge, already activated.
Both Paths lasts for 1d6 days, or they end after getting a fix.
Afterward, the hero must buy off the Hindrance by sacrificing an
opportunity to Advance or he eventually falls back into his dependency.
 The Imperial Palace of
Tsaritsin and Russian
Architecture
When the Catastrophe hit, the court of Czar Alexander II - like most
European administrations - looked for a suitable place to relocate in
order to survive the rapidly degenerating weather conditions.
Tsaritsin, a port city on the west bank of the Volga river, was selected
as the new seat of the Russian crown. Work started in earnest to build
a new Imperial Palace and extensive redesign of the city took place.
Today, Tsaritsin is a prime example of the Russian “zima krepost’”
(Winter Fortress) - a self-contained building that rises, tower-like,
above the surrounding frozen landscape, defying the cold winds from
the north.
The city/tower of Tsaritsin has a layer structure which follows the
social stratification of Russian society.
The upper structure and the tower proper, known as “desyat’ki” (the
Tens), houses the apartments of the aristocracy, the administrative
offices and, on the top floor, the Imperial court itself and the quarters
of the Czar and his family and entourage.
Landing pads and other external structures extend from the main
body of the Tens.
The ground levels, or “vnizu” (Downstairs), are reserved to the
servants and soldiers, and also house utilities. These “lower quarters”
also incorporate the original buildings of Tsaritsin, and are normally
buried beneath the snow layer.
The underground levels are the seat of the geothermal heating systems
and of the factories. This is where the rabochiye (working class citizens,
laborers) live and work, in an artificially-lit warren of corridors and
underground chambers. Access to the underground levels is formally
prohibited without official authorization.
Notable features and locations
The Sky Dome - at the top (21st) level of the Palace of Tsaritsin, the
steel-reinforced glass dome houses the Tzar’s personal winter garden
and his festival hall, the emperor’s personal observatory and throne
room. Emperor Vladimir is said to spend most of his time in the
dome. The dome is heavily guarded, and can be accessed only by the
aristocracy and, upon invitation, by foreign visitors.
Devyat’ Plaza. Also known as Casimir’s Plaza, this vast space
occupies level Nine of the tower, and acts as a connection between
the aristocracy’s levels and the commoners’ levels. The plaza is
dominated by the statue of Czar Casimir, also known as The Little
Father of the New Russian Empire, and features shops and workshops
that cater for the needs of the aristocracy. The Plaza is also the lower
terminal point of the Great Staircase that serves the upper levels.
Elevators, service stairs and service slides lead from the Plaza to the
lower levels.
The Great Staircase. A wide spiral staircase connecting the upper
levels and acting as the main thoroughfare for the aristocracy. The
staircase is forty feet wide and is usually crowded with people moving
from one storey to the other, having conversations or interacting
socially. On some levels, the wide steps are used as parlors, and
equipped with couches and tables. The Staircase is the place where
duels are normally held (the Russian aristocracy having a passion for
dueling).
The Machine Chambers (mashina kamery) and the Central
Heating system. The underground levels are a gloomy, dark labyrinth
of colossal chambers and low corridors, where the rabochiye (also
known as troglodytes, proles or, to Raj and Company citizens,
morlocks) spend their lives on sixteen-hours cycles of work. The
place is dominated by huge machines and warren-like living quarters.
The Central Heating System, that uses the water of the Volga and
geothermal energy to heat the upper levels rises cathedral-like at
the heart of the underground levels. Men are constantly at work,
manning the dials that regulate the flow of steam and heat.
 Russian Mechanical
Prosthetics and Fabulous
Weapons
With their sinister design and gunmetal finishing, the Russian
prosthetic limbs are one of the trademarks of the Russian
military class.

While off-the shelf models are easily available, the Russian aristocracy
often favors custom-made limbs. These may include hidden
compartments and weapons (spring-activated blades, needle-guns),
and normally feature custom-designed ornamentation and jewelry.
The basic artificial limb is designed to perfectly emulate and replace a
natural limb.
Yet, hand replacements are often tweaked to acquire extra strength of
finer manipulator skills.

Prosthetic Limbs in Game

A replaced, basic limb, simply restores the functionality of the old limb
(see the costs in the table), and they have the same Toughness of the
person using it +2 (useful for called shots).
In addition to the basic limb, you can acquire one or more modifications,
depending from the size.
Distinctive Drawback: the nerve/muscle interface of Russian artificial
limbs is not perfect, so that the user’s stress can cause mechanical “tics”
to develop. This is at the origin of the cliché - popular with penny
dreadful authors - of the evil Russian mastermind whose hand snaps
open and closed during moments of tension. Whenever a character
with a prosthesis is handled a deuce as first Action Card, the limb
“tics”, making noise, and cannot be used in the current round.
Destroying a Prosthetic Limb: Usually a called shot is necessary to
intentionally hit a prosthetic limb, but it can also happen in case the
character rolls on the Incapacitation table, and the location selected is
that of the prosthesis. When it happens, it is really bad news, because
these gizmos are powered by mercury batteries, which, if damaged,
release a cloud (Medium Burst Template) of very poisonous and
corrosive gas (a Vigor roll is required to avoid suffering 2d8 damage).
The cloud dissipates after 1d6 rounds.

LIMB BASIC COST FOR MAX

COST MODIFICATION MODIFICATIONS
Wrist and hand 2000 1000 1
Forearm and hand 3000 1500 1
Whole arm and 5000 7500 2
hand
Lower leg and foot 5000 2500 2
Whole leg and foot 7000 3500 3

Modifications
Available modifications are:
Armored: The limb is protected by extra metal layers, granting it +2
Toughness.
Bejeweled: The limb is inlaid in gold, jewels and so on. It is clearly
artificial, but grants +1 Charisma.
Crude: The limb is very ugly (-2 Charisma), but the cost of this
modification is subtracted, not added to the total cost of the limb.
Enhanced Attribute: Choose an attribute (Strength or Agility). The
limb raises by one dice step the relevant skill dice.
Weapon: The limb is fitted with an implanted limb (maximum size of
a dagger or a handgun for a hand, a short sword for an arm or a leg).
The weapon can be found only with a bodily inspection and a Notice
(-2) roll. Cost of weapon not included.

Needle Gun
A weapon using an electromagnetic field to accelerate a shard of iron
over the speed of sound. The weapon is rare and extremely expensive,
and is usually favored by the Russian aristocracy (but its use as a
dueling weapon is considered impolite).
Small and highly concealable, a needle gun is a fast, very short range
weapon that delivers damage equal to that of a large caliber gun.
A standard needle gun fits the fist, the barrel being half between the
first and second finger, and has a magazine of twenty needles.
A second version of Needle Gun exists, called Dart Gun, which shoots
poisoned darts at short range. An assassin’s weapon, is even more rare.

WEAPON RANGE DAMAGE ROF COST SHOTS NOTES

Dart Gun 4/8/16 2d6 1 1000 8 Silenced,
Poisoned
Needle Gun 6/12/24 2d8 1 1000 20 AP 1,
Silenced

Poisoned: A target Shaken or wounded by this weapon suffers the

effect of the darts’ poison. Many type of toxins can be delivered with
this weapon, usually Lethal, Paralysis or Knockout poisons (see Savage
Worlds core rules).
Silenced: A silenced weapon is very difficult to hear. When it shots,
place a Large Burst Template centered on the shooter. Any person
within it are allowed a Notice roll to hear it, while outside the Template
no sound is heard.
 Afterword -
Not Last Year’s Steampunk
The core concepts of this story were developed in 2014, as a short
demo scenario for the Savage Worlds RPG. Called “The Snowglobe
Caper”, it was based on what, at the time, was just an elevator pitch and
a notebook filled with notes, and a working title.
What I wanted was a different sort of steampunk/steampulp world,
an exciting and diverse gaming world for the players to explore.
Something that could be described as “not last year’s steampunk”.
In the end, that demo game was never played - and the story slowly
morphed into “Glass Houses”, the first story, and the first published bit
of the “Hope & Glory” universe.

I hope you had as much fun reading it as I had writing it.

And talking about writing - this is not a one-man-show (even if it
maybe started like one), and there’s a few people I need to thank.
I am tremendously indebted to the graphical artists currentli at work
on the project, Angelo Montanini and Alberto Bontempi, whose
vision gave body and color to what were only words on a screen.
Without Angelo and Alberto’s contribution, this project would be
going nowhere.
I also need to express my gratitude to my long-suffering editor, miss
Clara Giuliani, that helped turning my first draft into something
readable and (hopefully) worth reading.
And a big thank you to Umberto Pignatelli, that took my raw notes
and turned them into playable concepts in the Appendix.

Finally, a tip of the hat to the GGStudio team: Matteo Ceresa and Luca
Basile, and of course our fearless leader, Gionata dal Farra.

Davide Mana
Asti, Italy
January 2017
 About the Author
Davide Mans was born in Turin, Italy, 1967. He studied science in
Turin, London, Bonn, Urbino. He got a BSc and a PhD in Geology. He
served in the Air Force.
Davide has been a call center operator, language teacher, scarecrow,
university researcher, freelance researcher, post-doc course teacher,
translator, author, content crafter, art show coordinator, editor,
lecturer, game designer, fantasy writer, teacher of Taoist Philosophy,
book reviewer, web designer, bicycle repairman.
He lives in Castelnuovo Belbo, a 900-souls community in the hills of
the Monferrato area of Northern Italy.
Davide has been writing – both for the fiction and gaming markets –
since the mid ’90s, and his works have been featured in a number of
fiction anthologies and gaming books.
In his spare time he listens to music, plays at tabletop roleplaying
games, cooks and watches old movies. He’s currently waiting for
the dealer to deal him the next hand of cards.
He blogs – about history, adventure, literature – at the Karavansara
Blog