The City Beneath the Gears

Old Smoke. New Order. A heartbeat forged in brass.

They say the city was born from a storm.

Long before the copper towers pierced the soot-dark sky, before the Ministry’s clocks dictated the hour of every breath, the valley had been nothing but fog and fire. Steam rose naturally from the earth, hissing through fractures in the blackened stone — a promise, or perhaps a warning. And when the first engineers arrived with their wagons full of brass piping and reckless dreams, the city simply awakened to meet them.

They named it Ashbourne, though no one remembers why. The name clings to the tongue like a cough, thick with smoke. It is a place of invention and ghosts, of skyships tethered to rusted moorings, of endless staircases winding into basements no one remembers building. If you listen closely at dawn, you can still hear the gears turning beneath the cobblestones — a constant metallic murmur, the heartbeat of something vast and unseen.

I. The Founders and the Fire

The first Founders were not noblemen, nor scholars. They were thieves of knowledge — watchmakers, machinists, alchemists dismissed from royal universities for “unnatural pursuits.” They saw in the valley’s volcanic steam not danger but power. By the time the rest of the world noticed, the first engines were already running, spewing light into the sky like captured stars.

No one recorded the day the Founders disappeared, but every apprentice knows the legend: they were swallowed by their own creation. The heart-engine — the vast subterranean machine that still keeps Ashbourne alive — grew too hungry. The Founders fed it coal, then copper, then souls. The gears turned, and they were never seen again.

Now, every citizen of Ashbourne works for the engine. Some knowingly, most not.

II. The Clockmaker’s Quarter

At the city’s center lies the Clockmaker’s Quarter, where time itself seems to hesitate. Every wall bears the face of a clock, all ticking slightly out of sync. The air smells of oil and ozone. Here, artisans craft mechanical hearts for war automatons, prosthetic limbs for wounded workers, and delicate birds that can sing without lungs. Timepieces are traded like currency; to own one is to measure your worth by precision.

Among the rows of soot-black shops stands one with no sign — only a window display showing a single watch, its hands spinning counterclockwise. They say that if you dare to wind it, the city rewinds with you for the span of one heartbeat. But it will cost you a day of your life.

No one admits to having tried.

III. Sky Above, Smoke Below

Ashbourne is divided into two layers — the Skyline and the Below. The Skyline glitters with glass bridges and dirigible ports, populated by the wealthy and their mechanical attendants. Down in the Below, where the pipes drip and the air tastes of metal, the workers dwell among the gears themselves. Steam leaks through every crack like breath through broken lips.

In the Below, they whisper of rebellion. They paint sigils in soot on factory doors — circles within circles, teeth within teeth — the sign of the Cogwright’s Guild, a secret order said to build machines that dream of freedom.

Above, the aristocrats dismiss such rumors. After all, they reason, machines do not dream.

But every so often, a clock stops ticking at the same moment all across the city.

When it starts again, something — or someone — is missing.

IV. The Lantern Girls

When the fog rolls in from the river, a line of women in dark coats walk the streets carrying lanterns made from shattered bottles and polished gears. They are known as the Lantern Girls, though most are widows of the engine — women whose lovers never returned from the deep shafts. For a coin, they’ll guide you through the streets safely, whispering stories of ghosts that haunt the valves and vents.

For two coins, they’ll tell you what the engine is really made of.

For three, they’ll show you where it sleeps.

V. The Heart Beneath

No citizen of Ashbourne has seen the engine in generations, though its presence is everywhere — in the trembling of the floorboards, the faint metallic taste of the rain. The Ministry swears it is stable, that the ancient blueprints are intact, that the pressure gauges are steady.

But the oldest workers in the Below know better.

They say the engine isn’t just a machine. It’s alive. It breathes through the chimneys, it dreams in pulses of light beneath the ground. The Founders may have built it, but the city belongs to it now. The engine chooses who thrives, who vanishes, who burns.

And every century or so, it wakes — not to destroy, but to remember.

VI. The Gears Turn Again

Tonight, the fog is thicker than usual. The clocks are all running backward. The dirigibles are grounded, their pilots staring at the sky where a second moon has appeared, pale and mechanical.

Down in the Below, a child is born with eyes the color of molten brass. The midwife swears she can hear ticking in the infant’s chest. The Lantern Girls have vanished, leaving their lamps still burning in the streets.

Somewhere beneath the cobblestones, a sound begins — slow at first, then steady.

Click.

Whir.

Turn.

The City of Ashbourne is breathing again.

Author’s Note

The City Beneath the Gears is an introduction to the mythology of my steampunk universe — a world where progress has a price, and where every invention demands a soul. Future entries will explore the ministries, guilds, and families that keep the heart-engine alive… or try to shut it down.

Until then, keep your lantern lit, your goggles polished, and your gears turning. The smoke is rising again.