The city under curfew was no place to wander, so Duncan spent the entire night in the antique shop—driven by the excitement of standing once again on solid land. Tirelessly, he explored every corner of the building.
The body he now inhabited may have once belonged to a cultist, but in life, he had still been an ordinary citizen. He relied on the conveniences of modern society to survive—he needed communication, basic goods, a place in the social machine. He interacted with the city on a daily basis. And that left behind many clues—clues that Duncan could now use to piece together the basic workings of life in Pland and the technological state of this world.
Behind the counter on the first floor, Duncan found a stash of cash—mostly change in coins, along with a few creased bills in blue and green ink. The currency was legal tender across most city-states, backed by both the Council of Governors and the Boundless Sea Trade League. The main unit was the solara, with a subunit—the peso—worth a tenth.
The cash on hand added up to just over two hundred solaras. Not a fortune by any means, but, according to fragments of memory, enough to support a small family for about a month in the Lower Quarter. For someone who ran a failing shop and funneled most of his income into cult donations, that wasn't bad. There must have been at least a few regular customers keeping the business afloat.
The first floor was divided into two parts: the storefront, which occupied about two-thirds of the space, and a small warehouse in the back accessed via a door beside the staircase. Beyond the warehouse, there was a rear entrance—likely used for loading supplies.
Upstairs, the second floor was more complex. It held a washroom, two bedrooms—one large, one small—and a narrow corridor that shared plumbing infrastructure with the neighboring building. There was also a tiny kitchen, but the layer of dust suggested it hadn't been used in weeks.
After his thorough exploration, Duncan returned to the master bedroom. It was even smaller than the single-room flat he used to live in back on Earth. His gaze landed on a small side table next to the bed. On it sat a photograph in a simple black frame.
Black and white. A young couple and a child, standing in front of a crude studio backdrop of a garden. The adults were plainly dressed, their expressions gentle. The girl, perhaps four or five, smiled at the camera.
Duncan picked up the frame and examined it. The man whose body he now inhabited was not in the photo. These were family—perhaps distant, perhaps close—but it was hard to tell. As he stared, a flicker of sentiment rose in his chest, something bittersweet and hollow. Maybe remnants of a dying man's final affection.
But there were no other memories. The identities of the people in the photo had dissolved with the soul that once held them.
Setting the frame down, Duncan tried to estimate the cost of having such a portrait made in a place like the Lower Quarter. That alone told him something about the world's photographic technology. The studio setting, the clarity—it all hinted at a world that had grown familiar with the camera lens.
And then his attention shifted to the bed.
Neat. Almost suspiciously so.
An obsessed cultist, as the previous owner of this body had been, shouldn't have had much time or energy for housekeeping. The shop downstairs had clearly been neglected—so why was this bedroom so pristine?
With that question in mind, he crossed the hall and opened the door to the smaller bedroom.
The same tidiness. Clean linens. A neatly organized desk.
Something didn't add up.
The last memories from this body were vague, but Duncan was certain the man had left for a secret cult gathering several days ago—never to return. There was no memory of tidying up before leaving.
That meant someone else had been living here. Recently.
A relative? A housemate?
Duncan frowned, trying to draw deeper on the lingering fragments of memory. There was someone—a girl with dark auburn hair. A vague silhouette, but strong enough to stir emotion. It might have been the dying man's only tether to the world of the living.
He approached the desk in the smaller room. Pens and paper were neatly arranged, and at the center lay a blue-covered book. The cover was stamped with gears and rods, and across the top, in looping, formal letters, was the title:
"The Art of Steam and Gears — General Curriculum III"
Duncan lifted the book, his brows rising slightly.
On board the Vanished, he hadn't had a single book to read. And though this one was technical—far beyond his understanding—it might still offer insight into the world around him.
He flipped open the cover and skimmed past the diagrams and annotations, ignoring the complicated engineering notes. His attention focused on the introductory text:
"...Fire, or more precisely, the specific flame produced by burning deep-sea oils and nearshore crystalline fuel, is the foundation upon which our civilization is built. Its properties enable both technological advancement and protection against incursive entities…
"Despite the availability of electric energy, fire remains unmatched in its ability to resist anomalies and maintain mechanical consistency in high-risk zones… Empirical studies confirm steam power is the most stable energy form in deep-space influence conditions…"
Duncan stared at the passage, eyes slowly narrowing.
It explained the many anomalies he'd noticed: why gas lamps and fire torches were used in the underground tunnels; why even in a city advanced enough for household electric lighting, open flames still ruled the streets and sewers.
They weren't there out of ignorance. They were there to push back the dark.
That detail alone said more about this world than a hundred diagrams ever could.
He kept flipping through the book, but the pages were filled with an incomprehensible jungle of mechanical drawings, annotations, and calligraphy.
This wasn't the steam engine of his Earth. These machines—those intricate linkages and precise valves—were something else. Something from a world shaped by a constant battle between technology and the arcane. Between logic and madness.
It was beautiful in its own strange, terrifying way.
He slowly closed the book and returned it to its original place.
The deeper truth of this world eluded him still—but now he had a foothold. A shop, a name, a place in the city. A thread in the tapestry of a civilization that had survived in spite of all the things lurking beyond the veil.
And he intended to follow that thread wherever it led.