Black and White Dresses in the City of Steam

[Maid harem, steampunk, aristocratic business intrigue, growth through estate management.

This is a completely fictional world, entirely unrelated to reality.]

During the First Industrial Revolution, humanity surpassed its former limits.

The planet's unique minerals, combined with human ingenuity, powered steam engines and brought civilization a new dawn.

The United Kingdom of East Doluma and North Larnara, 1852. A time of conflict between rising capital and the old nobility.

The crown, the church, and the emerging capitalist class turned the Queen's realm into a chessboard of intrigue and betrayal.

Loken V. Flintley, the second son of a mining baron, was twenty-four. He had been born in a position that was just right: high enough to look down on the game of power, low enough to avoid the burdens of an heir.

If all went well, once his elder brother took over the family business, he would live the carefree life of a second son, exchanging pleasantries in aristocratic salons, signing a few mining reports, then returning to his mansion in Londiel, where the housekeeper would bring him tea, the cook would serve dinner, and the maid would iron his shirts until they were perfectly smooth.

But things would not always go smoothly. The technology and progress of Londiel were only one side of the story. Beneath the fog lay another world: shanties crowded around abandoned mineshafts, and the washbasins of the poorhouse brimmed with lye and blood.

Only when he was mired in trouble would he realize that he, too, was a piece on the board.

Fortunately, he would not lack companions to stand by his side. And they, too, happened to wear long black-and-white dresses, just like the pieces on a chessboard.