Welcome to Day 2 of SteamU Finals Week! Today we have a lecture by author Evelyn Ink. SteamU Professor Ink provides us with a teaser, a dispatch from the characters of Ill-Fated. Below, you will find a The Adventures of Leila in Shadowland. In this novel teaser, you will find a dispatch to the House of Edgewick. Witherspine, Bainland. What a lovely literary amuse bouche! Evelyn Ink's Ill-fated is available at Amazon.com. Be sure to grab a copy this holiday season. And make sure to take notes and stop by tomorrow for your another lecture from a fabulous author during this SteamU cram session.
Today’s Lecture by SteamU Professor: Evelyn Ink
Author of: Ill-fated
Further Discourses Available: Amazon
Office Hours:
The Adventures of Leila in Shadowland
Dispatch to the House of Edgewick. Witherspine, Bainland
From Leila Edgewick. Port Eliora, Southland
By Evelyn Ink
Have
crossed over the Shodowan Strait by way of ferry. Just out of Spinewall the sea
cliffs rose too high and jagged to sustain a passable road. Thus the Iron Spine
has taken over. Crookedly twisting its way along the coast, it is a patchwork
of iron bridges arching over ravines, gaping great pots of scorchmire, and
zigzagging around all the rugged bits between. It is barely wide enough for two
carts to pass and I am always on the edge of a terrifying precipice. There is
no shade from the sun and no escape from the wind. The reek of sulfur
constantly blows up from the scorchmire, saturating my clothes and hair. It is
a stench so thick I have begun to taste it. Am thirsty all the time, but the
water is terrible- no matter what inn, well, or stream I get it from– always
bitter and slightly briny. On top of that, the inns are uniformly filthy–
cramped and not one offering a bath. Each and every morning the Iron Spine
stretches out before me jagged, spiky, and endless.
Moonday,
Month of Gales
Without
warning, have been tossed onto a green sea of savage grass with Port Eliora
sinking its teeth into the horizon. Am faced with a dilemma. Have been told the
port city is terribly dangerous, but won’t be able to make it to Jasperjade
before nightfall, unsure what to do...
Am
hungry and tired, need a bath and a real bed. Have decided to go into the city…
Moonspell,
same day: Have found a room at the Mythwood. There is a fair in town and I have
seen things both strange and terrible. Puppets that move without a puppet
master, machines that make music without a musician, and a metalwork automaton
that wrote my fortune out on parchment. A man has taken my portrait! He says it
will be ready in the morning. He has shown me what it will look like. It is
called a tintype. I will be drained of all color, forever tiny and still. I do
not wish to be on display with all the other little ghost-souls, must remember to
purchase it in the morning.
There
is a strange woman in the lodger. I feel I have seen her before. She has wild
red hair and a mean face stretched tight like a pumpkin. She has been watching
me and I have taken my coin purse and boots to bed with me...
About the Author
Evelyn Ink was formally
trained to be a parachutist, but found it did not fit her longstanding desire
to avoid heights and thus decided to study the much less vertically horrifying
subject of English Literature.
Due to the world-wide
web of conspiracy which surrounds Evelyn Ink, she rarely appears in public, but
when she does it’s best to avoid her due to her enduring history of social
disrepute. There has been more than one regrettable event regarding bent
cameras and shattered umbrellas.
It’s hard to say how
old she is, but it is likely she was born well before you were. Her childhood
home, deep in some unknown, but undoubtedly pleasant countryside, was turned
into a plastic bubblepuck factory forcing her family to move far into the
Stonegrave Mountains. These Mountains were unfortunately chosen to be used as
an experimental avalanche catastrophe (EAC) site and once again the Ink Family
was forced to move. It seems ill-fortune struck again and again as they were
repeatedly obligated to change locations: once due to a plague of urban
badgers, a fracking sinkhole, and then again when a tuna factory’s waste
disposal sight was established just outside their home.
As an adult she has
continued on in this nomadic lifestyle, crossing oceans and continents when
necessary. Necessary being: under the scrutiny of the press, unwarranted
investigations, and an ill-timed anarchist fan base. Evelyn was quoted saying,
“The prompt, brutal reports of the local tabloids are most inaccurate.
Unrelated to that, I advise everyone to avoid the Newspaper as it is
insufferably dull these days.” Mrs. Ink also prefers the term “vacation” to
“exile.”
That said, Mrs. Ink
continues on writing and publishing while in exile . . . sorry, on vacation,
with her husband, who (name unknown) is thought by many to be both an anarchist
and mad philosopher.
You may choose to
follow Evelyn Ink on her blog, although due to her absolute terror of
electronics and a crippling phobia of the social media (technical term:
Socmephobia), her blog posts tend to be infrequent and erratic. Also, due to
several post exile investigations and her current relocation program, she is
generally prevented from giving specific information regarding her whereabouts
(Though, by the hollowly echo and vintage-like hum of a rotary phone, I would
suspect from our last conversation, she is somewhere deep underground).
This report was
conducted by:
Mr. Edwin Riddle
Of Public Relations,
Personal Investigates, and Subterfuge
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