The Mechanical Era



27th of Procidens, 5018.

A crew of men found themselves in the middle of a random forest, wearing protective coats to keep them warm. The leaves on the trees, which all used to be made up and filled with green leaves, making a lush green forest, have all turned orange and fallen down to the ground.

Being the end of autumn, bits of snow are seen falling down to the ground. It appears the winter may have arrived just a little earlier than expected. The snow started to slowly cover every inch of land, the group can see.

"God damn it! Why did they have to send us to this damn job! And why now specifically? This is the worst time ever to do this! Can't they have asked us to do it before?" one of the group members complained. 

"From what the boss told me, they had finished making up some sort of giant tram that they want to use. My guess is that they want to build a large network across the kingdom. A for why it took them until now, maybe they use different railroads. I don't know," another replied.

"I think I know," another brought up. The first one looked at the 3rd.

"Yea, and what is it?"

"I think they didn't want to spend money on something that they didn't want to fail, or at least, take a long time to build. If they had asked us to do it earlier, we might have worked with maps that are much more inaccurate, don't you think?"

"Yea, I guess go. But what on earth took those damn' 'engineers' so long! Won't it be simple as just rigging up a steam engine on a wooden platform and be done with it?" he argued back.

"You really think that they DIDN'T consider that option before?

Do you really think that they were dumb enough to spend, what is most likely a huge fortune, on building an extremely complicated mechanical device, without testing to see whether the most obvious and simple solution worked? 

Maybe they DID try it, but it didn't meet expectations. Maybe it didn't have enough horsepower. Maybe they wanted to carry a lot more things. Who knows?" the man rebutted. The DEF agent, seeing the two of the 5 group members argue, decided to break it up.

"Hey! Concentrate on the job!" he snapped. The two immediately shut their mouths and continued to work. The first conducted reconnaissance, to ensure that their maps were accurate enough to make a proper map of a rail line. 

Once any mistakes were found, the map went through a slight redraw, updating it to the current standards. They have been doing this for about a week now, going around and redrawing their maps.

As they were world along peacefully, one of them hear movement near the bushes. Out of curiosity, he got closer to the area, to see what was there. Bad idea. Suddenly, a demonic boar jumped on the man, pinning him to the ground. 

The man's heart rate jumped. He tried to free the beast, but it was of no use. The breast prepared itself to bite his face off and have him as his lunch.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The DEF agent accompanying the man had quickly taken out his revolver and shot down the beast. He then walks over to the man, to see if he was alright.

"Are you alright?" he asked. The man was heavily breathing. 

"Yes... I... I am alright!" he replies.

"You shouldn't wander off like that, you know. What the hell did you think was going to happen?"

"I thought it was some kind of animal that was hiding around. Not some demonic beast!"

"Well, you should have known. It had only been a few months since the wave had happened. Now get up, and get back to work..." he told the man.

The man got up and continued to work again. Once the sun was about 2 hours from sunset, the men had decided that they were done for the day, and went home. The next day, they would finish up reconnaissance, and update the maps.

30th of Procidens, 5018.

A bunch of men found themselves inside a small room, with a large map laid down on top of a table. This map detailed the geography and topography of the entire Hoverdam kingdom, intended to be used to draw up the railway network.

It featured all the tiny details one could desire, such as the river and its tributaries, represented by a blue line. It also features small towns and the big city, represented by small and large dots. It also featured a terrain section, marked with small drawings to represent what type of terrain it is, like a forest, flatlands, and such.

Next to the larger table, was a smaller table, with stacks of envelopes on the desktop. These envelopes were filled with more maps, made by a scouting team like the ones at the city of Hoverdam. They were supposed to use these smaller maps, to help draw the exact route to which the rail followed.

"Alright, everyone! We received the other maps from the other towns. His Majesty wants this done by the end of the month, which means we will have to move quickly.

We can now being to start drawing up the rail lines on the map. And remember, always make sure to check the area with the smaller maps before moving forward. Otherwise, he might have to build up the rail over the river, or whatever." one of them told the rest.

He then took out a piece of paper with the words 'reference' written on it and opened it up. It detailed what Kant had desired, to connect the city of Hoverdam, with the smaller towns within the kingdom, as well as the placing of a bit of rail line from two towns, to ease up logistics of materials.

With the reference in hand, as well as all the other maps, containing all the small details of the world, the group began their job to make a railroad network that cover the kingdom. Once they are finished, the drafts are out to be submitted to the engineers, to see if it the line would be feasible.

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