Ashes and Gears

The rain never stops in Gray Harbor. Soot mixed with sea fog, church bells rang on time through the humid air, and sailing ships and new steamships docked side by side at the pier. The largest port city in the north is standing at a crossroads that it still cannot name. The foundation of the old order is intact, but something different has begun to grow in the cracks. Ryan Hiddig is a low-level logger at the Port Authority. His job was to count ship tonnage and worker hours, and no one thought the numbers meant anything. But Ryan's way of looking at numbers was different from others, and he couldn't tell where this ability came from - just like those words that occasionally popped up in his mind, those analytical frameworks, and those things that he was sure he had "learned" but couldn't remember where he learned them. An unknown body on the dock and a high-pressure boiler blueprint of unknown origin pulled him into a whirlpool that was far larger than he expected. In the underground workshop, a group of people marginalized by the extraordinary system and the old order are secretly studying the power of steam and steel. The Chamber of Commerce smells profit. The Church Tribunal has set its sights on the Old City. And behind the game that everyone can see, there is a secret that was sealed thirty years ago - about the rift between supernatural power and mechanical power that no one really understands. Ryan doesn't want to change the world. He just saw clearly the direction in which the times were tilting earlier than others. But those who see the direction clearly are often the first to be involved.