The Phlogiston Precariousness

By: SF Bell

Welcome to the first in my series of Steampunk adventures featuring Ignatius St. Eligius. The goal here is to publish one scene a week, starting March 5th. Each chapter will be broken out into 1,2, or more scenes depending on how the action and writing flows. As I work out the layout of the story new scenes and chapters will appear below. As something is published a link on the item will become available. Thanks!

In the emerging industrial city of Harrisburg, several factories have mysteriously collapsed and there is little evidence as to why. The Mayor of the city in desparation has enlisted the help of Ignatius St. Eligius, an genius, inventor, businessman and former spy for the Union Army. To garner Ignatius’s assistance, he is released from his incarceration at the Pennsylvania State Lunatic  Hospital. In a city bursting at the seams with new advances in autmatons, air ships and steam power there are underlying currents of a greater threat. So great in fact that one of the most notorious spymasters of the Union army has expressed interest in Ignatius.

Returning to the city he loves, from his imprisonment on a hill, Ignatius begins to find that forgivess and forgetfulness are not quick to come. He plunges into the mysterious collapses keen to win his liberation from the threat of further incarceration. His course of investigation will take him through high society, the industrial complexes and in pursuit of truths great and small.

• Chapter 1
  • Scene 1
  • Scene 2
• Chapter 2
  • Scene 1
  • Scene 2
• Chapter 3
  • Scene 1
  • Scene 2
• Chapter 4
  • Scene 1
  • Scene 2
• Chapter 5
  • Scene 1
  • Scene 2
• Chapter 6
  • Scene 1
  • Scene 2
• Chapter 7
  • Scene 1
  • Scene 2
• Chapter 8
  • Scene 1
  • Scene 2
• Epilogue