Part 4 of my RIfts Steam Punk world timeline

[Emerald MoonSilver]

Here is the 4th part to my world timeline. It is shorter than I intended but I have been so busy with other more pressing matters that my writing speed has been a little slow. Hopefully you will still enjoy this small part and I hope to be a little faster in the future.


1849 A.D.:

It had been a year since the start of the gold rush, and despite rumors of the streets being lined with gold as well as being able to pick gold nuggets of the ground like shells on a beach, gold mining was actually quite a long and very labor intensive process.

It was those who sold tools and other items to the miners, who truly became wealthy during the gold rush.

No one learned this lesson more than the Larmac. They had come to California in search of easy riches, but after a month at most, over 95% of them decided to call it quits and look for some other way of having an easy life.

A small number stumbled upon a way to earn money that very few others were capable of, this being the raising of emus.

Several emu flocks had somehow come to California over 50 years ago and they had been a major nuisance for many a farmer and rancher since. These creatures were considered to be nothing more than a giant chicken with an attitude problem, and many of them had just been killed and left to rot.

For some reason though these “fowl-tempered” birds seemed to like the Larmac and often followed them around like some sort of pet. This led more than one Larmac to begin to raise the things and sell their eggs and meat to those who were interested. Many of the larger humanoid species ate the large eggs like a human eats chicken eggs. The Grackle Tooth were especially fond of emu eggs.

Speaking of Grackle Tooth, there were three brothers who were already local residents before the gold rush and when it started decided to try their hand at gold mining. They had very limited success. They made enough to survive on, but not enough to really ever get ahead. After the first year they decided to return to their previous jobs as shop keepers.

Their last business was a candy and pastry shop that did a surprisingly large amount of business with the local school children and miners alike. That business had been sold to a local family of Kobolds, who are now doing quite well, so a new business was needed, but what type is the question.

The area already had plenty of tool and general stores to appeal to the miners, and the 3 brothers, Grimm, had no interest in trying their hand in the garment business. Their inspiration came when they heard a couple of Ogres complaining about the lack of cafes that serve a proper high tea, and can cater to those who have such large appetites.

One of the brothers had noticed the success that some of the Larmac had with raising emu for meat and eggs, and was getting an idea on how to use them in a variety of easily made foods that could be eaten on the go.

Their experiments led them to the creation of a business that specialized in the creation of 5 pound plus sandwiches that incorporated various meats, emu eggs, and various toppings of a patron’s choice. These large creations could feed 1 or 2 large humanoids, 5 or 6 humans at least, or a whole large family of Kobolds or Goblins.

The shop was an immediate success and soon the bothers found themselves opening several new locations throughout the Western U.S. Their popular tagline, “We Has Da Meats”, soon became known throughout the region and led to the creation of a new style of business.

One, of the brothers, Harold, came up with the idea of selling locations independent owners and supplying them with ingredients and training to run their own business. Harold had in fact created the first fast food franchise system.

Besides the lack of success of more than a few miners, there was one major problem facing California this year, especially near the gold fields. Many people were falling sick and the numbers increased as the year progressed.

This was due to the fact that with so many miners coming from all parts of the world they were bringing with them illnesses that others had not been exposed to.

This was also do to the rapid expanding of several cities. San Francisco, which most o f the would be miners first entered the U.S. went from a population of 1000 in 1848 to over 25000 in 1849. The city simply could not handle such growth without problems.

The Vixen were running themselves ragged, and many other healers both magical and mundane were coming into the state to help as much as they could. The biggest surprise was an elder dragon by the name of Emerald Moonsilver rifted in over 400 healers from all over the world, almost exhausting her enormous amount of PPE in the process.

The dragon was rumored to be over 5000 years old and an early companion of Lady Gwendoline when they were both a young kit and a hatchling.

Throughout this ordeal the two teens from the future also helped out as much as they could, with the redheaded teen Jennifer starting to show traces of having healing abilities in addition to the unusual “traits” the two girls seemed to possess.

Both girls besides their Elvin level of beauty turned out to be completely immune to all forms of disease including the ability to eat anything they wanted to without ever getting even slightly ill. This last skill made a few Larmac jealous.

Gwendoline was worried about the girls initially when they arrived for this reason. People from more advanced times often found it very difficult to live in the past due to the quality of food, water and disease there. The girls though seemed to have a resistance to it that rivaled a god or demon lord. Something was definitely more than a little off with these girls.

While most people had not taken noticed of the two teens resistance to disease, one thing they notice was that as the year went by Kyori and the redheaded teen Jennifer seemed to be growing quite close.

The question of whether this was a close friendship or something more was answered quite clearly when Rex stumbled upon the two ‘Making Out’ in the redwood grove behind Gwendoline’s inn.

The quickly disentangled when Rex loomed over them, smirked, and said, “I never knew humans could have a tongue that long.”

1850 A.D.:

This year would prove to be quite a busy one, of which the introduction of California into the union would be most well known to the U.S. population in general.

Now up until this time there was the usual argument back and forth as to whether or not a state would be free or allow slaves. The answer in this case was so obvious that even Tennessee did not ever bother to argue. California had a huge non-human population. No one even knew how many Fae existed in the state, including the Fae themselves. Trying to get the Fae to participate in a census in the years and decades to come would be real “fun”.

With the slavery issue actually a non-issue, everyone thought that all the other states would give their approval, but for the first time a state, New York to be precise, did not give it. The reason their representatives gave was that, since California filled up the entire western boundary of the U.S. no one state should have complete control of it.

Now while someone of a logical argument, the real reason turned out to be the fact that several “prominent” business men in New York wanted California’s resources, again, and with California set to be state their chances of getting them were less than nil.

In the end though New York was outvoted and California would become of a state despite the rather amusing epic meltdown the senior senator from New York had on the floor of the senate. Quite frankly many of his fellow senators would not have minded him exploring California’s forests, only to be “accidently” stepped on by one of those large moving trees they heard about. They would, of course, not say this out loud but the thought was rather pleasant.

During this year a young runaway slave by the name of Isiah Levi made his way to California with an idea for a new type of cotton material that he believed would be very useful for work clothes.

The problem with this is trying to find someone to back his idea. Most clothing manufacturing was done in the northeast states, but with the growing population in the west, starting a business here was not too extreme, except for one obvious fact, that being, no one would back an idea by a slave

As luck would have it Isiah made a short stop at Long Barn on his way to San Francisco and while there a certain trio of now 12 year old Vixens overheard the man talk about his idea to one of the townsfolk.

Isiah was surprised when the 3 girls approached him, and even more so when they told him the amount of money they were willing to lend him, for a partnership of course. After all, where did 3 little girls get access to such a large sum of money?

The answer to that question starts two years previous when the three girls found the 1980’s fashion magazines that the two teens from the future brought with them.

One of the copies that the girls made was given a young Elvin friend of theirs who took it with her back to the Elvin-Centaur nation and showed it to all of her friends. One of these friends had a father who ran a factory making clothing more suitable to various non-humans in style and comfort.

He came up with the idea to copy and / or modify some of the fashions that he saw in the magazine. When he found out where the magazine originally came from, he generously offered to give the three young Vixen orphans a generous share of the profits.

It was obvious that the girls would need someone to watch over their money and with Lady Gwendoline being busy doing ten other things at once, Miss O’ Shea decided to help. Even as old as she was, Lady Gwendoline never put much effort in running a large scale business empire, which given her connections she could have easily done. She preferred the quiet life running her inn and overseeing the health of her small town.

The girl’s money was supposed to be a secret so that no one tries to take advantage of them, and it mostly still is, except for one ‘incident’.

About a year ago three Arabian Horses were shipped to the orphanage with a note attached saying, “Please enjoy this humble gift.” Only the three girls’ names were on the note, not who shipped the horses themselves.

With Arabians being quite expensive a few rumors began flying back and forth about wealthy secret admirers or long lost wealthy relatives.

Miss O’ Shea pays for the horses’ upkeep so many believe that it was her who gave the girls the animals.

Anyway, several of the items the girls wanted to make were made out of Denim, but they didn’t know what that was, now with this nice human here saying that he created it they girls could design all those clothes that they saw. Now they just needed someone to make and distribute these new clothes in the U.S. and they had just the person in mind to be Mr. Levi’s partner.

The only problem was that the woman they had in mind, Ms. O’Shea was presently in San Francisco, which is no where near Long Barn.

The little leader of the three girls, Jessica, had recently learned to ley line phase, and there was a line not to far away. Of course Jessica had only phased for about 3 or 4 miles, not the hundreds of miles to the city. No big deal right, what could possibly go wrong?

Some time later in San Francisco, workers in one of Ms. O’Shea warehouses’ were startled to here a high pitched feminine scream followed by a loud splash just outside their doors.

Going outside they noticed a very young and now very soggy fox girl trying to tread water, which is not easy in 40 degree water.

The mage on duty levitated the shivering fox girl out of the water and went to notify his superiors about this little incident. The local Vixen medic took care of the girl after the mage left.

About an hour later the mage returned with Ms. O’ Shea who looked at the girl in the infirmary with an amused expression on her face.

As Jessica explained why she was there and how she ended up in the ocean, she was surprised that Ms. O’Shea suddenly looked very upset if not alright angry with her.

Jessica was confused, for while she could admit that trying to line jump was rather dumb, she was used to Lady Gwendoline never getting upset and being somewhat lax in discipline because she had never had any kids of her own.

Ms. O’Shea on the other hand had lost several of her own children over her 1500 year life span and because of such tended to “go off” on foolish children who risked their lives for foolish reasons.

It’s hard for a parent to lose children, but Ms. O’Shea first lived in a time in which the world was a much more dangerous place and medical care was unheard of in most areas.

She had lost children to disease, war, famine, and to accidents, but she never took life lightly, and always tried to protect her children as best she could.

Seeing the poor little fox girl begin to cry Ms. O’Shea pulled her close and began to try and calm down the weeping preteen, explaining why she was so angry at her.

Jessica did not know her mother or any of her own family for that matter. She was found abandoned, outside a local sheriff’s with a note that asked for someone to take care of her, because the writer of the note could not.

No reason was mentioned in the note and no name was signed. Jessica always wondered why she abandoned and who her mother was, and seeing how caring Ms. O’Shea was from talking to her, she could only hope that her real mother was like this before she had to give Jessica away.

Ms. O’Shea agreed to accompany Jessica back to Long Barn to talk to Mr. Levi, and she was also bringing along her daughter, Elana, that no one had seen before.

The girl was about 14 years old with long red hair, bright green eyes, and much to Jessica’s surprise was quite plain looking, unlike her mother. She looked almost frumpy, as Jessica accidently said the last word out loud.

As soon as she said it, Jessica tried to slap her hand over her mouth but it was too late, so the poor girl started to rattle off an apology so fast she could hardly be understood.

“It’s ok, I’m not mad at you, if anything I’m used to it.”, Elana said in a resigned tone of voice.

“Still, I am sorry, it’s just that sometimes my mouth works faster than my head does.”, Jessica said.

This was all new to Ms. O’Shea, but she wasn’t surprised, for some reason her daughter did not share much of what she did during her day to day life with her mother, which confused her at times. After all she considered herself to be a good mother, so why wouldn’t her daughter talk to her more often?

A short while later Ms. O’Shea and the two girls line phased back to Long Barn, without anyone getting wet this time.

Jessica led her potential benefactor to Mr. Levi and the three of them over the course of a few hours worked out a deal on producing clothes made from this new denim material.

Elana had no interest in business deals, so she decided to wander around the town to see if she could see anything interesting. She found what she was looking for a little while later.

Wandering past the school, she noticed a boy her age sitting by himself on a bench. Elana introduced herself and sat next to the boy, but was barely able to get a few words out when a rather pretty young Vixen girl walked by. The boy quickly excused himself and ran after the Vixen and started to talk to her leaving Elana sitting by herself and looking rather depressed.

“It figures.” Elana sighed as she decided to just line phase home.

Arriving home, Elana ran up the stairs to her rooms and slammed the door causing several of the staff to sigh and shake their heads. This was almost becoming a daily occurrence. The girl was old enough now to no require a governess, so most of the staff tended to ignore her unless she needed something from them.

Most of the staff had been brought over from England and Ireland, and had been raised that the staff should not interfere in the affairs of their employers. Not everyone though believed this.

One person in particular, the butler’s son Tomas, tried to help the poor girl when he could much to his parents disapproval.

Tomas had known Elana as long as he could remember. He had been adopted from an orphanage at the age of two much to the relief of those running it in Bath, England. He was a half-orc, but was “somewhat” different looking than most.

From a distance he looked human, but up close you would notice the small black horn stubs on his heads and of course his skin color, which was the poor boy’s bane throughout his life. For some reason his skin color was a bright metallic green that glistened in the sunlight like a polished mirror.

Up to this day he was teased horribly by most, even so-called mature adults who should be beyond such childish behavior. Elana was one of the very few who accepted him as he was and was a close friend to him.

Now that the two were getting older, a new form of teasing started, namely hinting that the two were now a romantic couple. Heh, Tomas wished that this was true, but he could only imagine how his parents and others would react. Strangely enough he had a feeling Ms. O’Shea wouldn’t mind, but it was difficult enough being friends, he did not want to make his or Elana’s life any more complicated. Besides, he didn’t even know if she would accept any offers to date him.

Anyway, back to the present. As Tomas noticed Elana run by and slam the door to her rooms he had a feeling what the problem was. So far the poor girl had tried to get the attention of four separate boys her age, and none of them seemed interested in her. The same thing probably happened again.

Tomas could not figure it out, as Elana was not exactly homely for a human in his humble opinion. The problem was she tried to compare herself to Vixen and Dark Elves, who tended to be better looking in most young boys’ eyes. Still being turned down five times was a little excessive. The poor girl almost seemed cursed.

Looking at the door to her room, Tomas sighed, knocked on the door then entered. Hopefully he could come up with something that would make the poor girl at least feel a little better.

About a month later Lady Gwendoline was just putting the finishing touches on the local franchise of “We Has Da Meats”, that she bought into, when she heard several rather odd sounds coming from outside.

Moving up the street she saw what appeared to be several young students from her school riding what appeared to be 6 foot long dragon plushies that were somehow moving and giggling under their own power.

“Hi, Ho mini Emeralds away.” one of the young girls shouted as they ran off down the street.

“Going to be one of “those” days I see.” Gwendoline said in a deadpan tone of voice.

“Ah, they look so cute on the little Emeralds don’t they.” said a very distinctive Irish accented voice behind Gwendoline.

Sighing again, and turning around Gwendoline saw her old friend and source of her occasional high blood pressure Kathryn O’Shea.

“I should have guessed that it was you that created those stuffed animals?” Gwendoline said.

“Well I didn’t personally created them but they are the latest creation of the O’Shea Toy and Game company, The Plushy Golem.”, Kathryn said with a smirk on her face that made Gwendoline want to smack her.

“And to anticipate your next question they were created to help watch over small children when proper adult supervision is not possible. As I recall your own orphanage is in need of more teachers and trained nurses, that is where the plushies come in.”, Kathryn said.

“How do they do this?” Gwendoline said while having serious doubts about this latest creation of her friend.

“Quite simple, each dragon is able to cast both healing as well as cure disease and poison spells, as well as being equipped with spell for stunning others if they try to harm the children.”, Kathryn said.

“Semi-intelligent magic using plushies, can’t see how this could go wrong.” Gwendoline said.

Don’t worry my dear each of my little dragons come with a viewing stone that not only allows the user to see what it presently sees, but also to issue voice commands if the user is registered with the plushy. All this for a mere 2000 dollars per plushy.”, Kathryn said with a note of pride in her voice.

“You have any idea how much that is for this time period?”, Gwendoline asked.

“Seems a fair price, and I have sold over 300 of my little darlings in the past 2 weeks alone. Remember dear there are a lot of wealthy individuals in this land and back in the “Old World.”, Kathryn said as Gwendoline developed an eye twitch for some reason.

“Not to worry though I have personally sent many of my little darlings to various orphanages and children’s hospitals around the world. The Franciscan Monks were particularly fond of them given their lack of funds as of late.”, Kathryn said.

Besides the events going on in California, there were two other events that took place worldwide, the first one concerning the Kobold race, and their effect on a soon to be extinct empire.

Although it was known by other races, somehow most of the Humans were unaware of the Kobolds’ ability to constantly see auras. Besides their visual sight, Kobolds see all living things constantly surrounded by a multi-color aura. The usually don’t mention this, because most of them still seem to think that everyone else sees auras as well.

Now auras show a person’s emotional state, whether they are healthy or suffering from an illness, and most curiously whether or not a person is lying. This combined with a Kobold’s complete immunity to illusions and mind control makes them the perfect lie detector.

It is this last ability that caused the most problems when it was found out. There are spells and psychic abilities that grant one the ability to see auras, but they can be blocked.

A Kobolds’ ability is always on and cannot be blocked by any means. Even the gods and Titans cannot hide the truth from a Kobold, for some odd reason.

As news of this ability spread certain members in society, such as politicians began to panic. Rumors began to spread that Kobolds were telepathic and could influence your mind. This is of course nonsense, but many began to believe this.

This led to calls of segregating Kobolds away from the rest of the population. Others chose deal with this problem through various acts of violence.

The worst of the violence occurred in the Ottoman Empire in which over 5000 were killed. This is a major blow to a species with such a low birth rate, and which one particular deity was rather fond of. This proved to be the undoing of the empire and those that supported them.

It was well known that the goddess Janus had a rather low opinion of humans, mainly due to their Atlantean ancestry, but other races she was quite close to. She admired the Vixen for their devotion to healing others, the dark elves for devotion to protecting others, and the Kobolds for being quite harmless and innocent as well as a bit of a mystery.

What most people did not known is that the Kobold race is actually several billion years older than the Titans themselves. This begs the question, or how such an old race could still be so “primitive” in many respects despite their special abilities.

The punishment for the Ottoman’s and their allies would be appropriate. All of those who directly killed the Kobolds were turned into kobolds themselves, who then promptly disappeared much to Janus’s surprise. Replacing them was a not that said, “I have use for all of these, your loving aunty Aphrodite.”

“Oh great what is that blond idiot up to now.”, Janus said in an annoyed tone of voice, while also wondering what use her aunt had for over 30000 new kobolds.

Those politicians and other officials who supported the massacre now found themselves unable to lie for the rest of their lives.

The riots began in less than a day when the people began to see what their leaders were really like. This sudden burst of honesty also terrified politicians in other countries when they found out what happened. Many were calling for the affected countries to be completely quarantined in case the cases of honesty were contagious.

This left a power vacuum that others were more than willing to fill since the present political and religious officials were now running for their lives in many cases.

One of the groups interested in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire included the Greek Parthenon of gods who saw an opportunity to not only reestablish their culture in Greece itself, but also in southeastern Europe and in the lands surrounding Constantinople.

The goddess Demeter played a large part in the growing acceptance of the “old gods” by showing the farmers and wine growers in the lands how to often double and sometimes triple the yield and quality of their crops.

The god Poseidon created numerous fresh water pools on many of the smaller islands that were near the Greek mainland.

The former Ottoman colonists were quite surprised when they were not attacked and more often than not helped out by the Greek citizens who were in the process of reclaiming their country. The newly independent Greece and others stood a much better chance of succeeding if there was no infighting between all those who lived there.

With the growing influence the Olympian Gods would have in the succeeding years, the former Gods of Egypt began eyeing the lands that the former Ottoman empire used to occupy in North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.

The many tribes in Arabia were used to a nomadic and often difficult way of life. Water and food were often in short supply and the tribes often warred amongst themselves.

Magic was also mostly unknown to them as most of Arabia was sadly lacking in ley lines.

The gods, not bound by the lack of said lines, offered to create many fresh water lakes and fertile lands, both forested and plains, in return for begin worshipped.

They also suggested that the new lands would make it easier to raise families and fighting between the various tribes over resources would be unneeded.

This would be proven true as over the years both the Olympian and Egyptian civilizations would have a larger role in world politics thanks to the resources they now had access to such as increased spice and food production.

Although the situation in the former Ottoman lands would turn out far better for the citizens than it was under the previous rulers, Gaia was not a happy Titan.

She had laid down certain rules on how the gods should interact with the human and other mortal residents of this version of Earth. For some reason though her daughters were not in the habit of listening to her.

First Luna was bouncing around the globe helping everyone and anyone, which wasn’t a bad thing per say, but a deity should try and remain somewhat distant from her worshippers or they might begin to take her for granted.

This wasn’t a belief that all agreed with, both Aphrodite and the titan Hyperion disagreed with her “old fashioned” attitudes.

This though was minor in comparison to Janus’s latest efforts. What happened to the Kobolds was a tragedy, but you cannot go around and turn an entire nation’s military into kobolds. Humans and other must learn from their mistakes.

Still this was her first offense, at least Gaia thought so.

“Hmmmm, maybe I should have a look into my daughter’s past actions.” Gaia thought to herself.

Looking backwards in time, most of what Gaia saw were minor infractions of the rules she had set. When she got to a certain event 15000 years before, she froze in shock and horror.

By collapsing the former Mediterranean Sea wall she had sent untold mortals to their deaths and reduced an up and coming young god to a neurotic mess.

Now Gaia prided herself on never letting her temper get the best of her, but this had pushed her beyond limits. Daughter or not, Janus would have to be punished and punished severely.

What she had in mind had only been done twice before and poor Janus would more than likely never be the same afterwards, but had no one but herself to blame.

On a small island near Greece, Janus was quite shocked to find herself teleported to the outer plains and facing an angry and glowing Gaia.

“Daughter, we have to ‘talk’.” Gaia said in a tone of voice that sent shivers down Janus’s spine.

Janus would not be seen on Earth 3 for over 5 years. In the mean time the titan Rhea agreed to watch over Janus’s charges and hopefully fix any messes that the absent elder goddess may have caused.

The second major event taking place concerned the state of Virginia, which of course, was one of the original 13 colonies in the U.S.

Virginia, despite being a slave state, had made use of elementals and golems for agriculture almost since they were introduced, and they had slightly more tolerance for non-humans than the other Southern States did.

Even so, it was a shock when they announced that they were ending the use of slaves for the large plantations and even some of the smaller land owners were now relying entirely on magical help for farming.

This sent shock waves through the south, which intensified when North Carolina made the same announcement 2 weeks later.

Tennessee, now found itself almost surrounded by non-slave states and it made them even more paranoid than usual. Their militia was always active along their borders and there were isolated incidents of guns fired over their border at Kentucky. This led Kentucky to start and patrol their borders more heavily as well. Things were starting to look grim.

A couple of weeks after that, the states of Missouri and Arkansas ended their unofficial use of slaves as well due to a secret negotiation with the Dark Elvin and Centaur alliance.

It seems that the alliance had perfected using a permanent portal to send goods through safely and quickly. It had limited range though. In exchange for the two states ending all use of slaves there, the alliance would build one of their new portals in Missouri, which were provide a very quick method of trade between the two states and the west coast of North America.

The trans-continental railroad was still a few years down the line so this new portal provided a much quicker means of sending goods east than relying on ships.