Gisela, Pertinacity of Industry

"Gisela steadfast, stalwart, sober and stoic. Men born in her wake boasting hearts heroic. In drought conditions her land still feels favoured. Her presence rendering kingdoms unwavered."

Shielah's Gambit
Every now and then, Formcaste goes into lock down. At every intersection and corner, air raid sirens blare into the open atmosphere signalling the alarm to which all citizens are accustomed. Windowed roller shutters close, bars slam down across doors and domiciles are made safe in a way each can afford. The city has even gone to great lengths over many years to construct a formidable steel shell that emerges from its base to encase this gargantuan tower of a metropolis. The gigantic mechanical panels conceal the sky from view making the already sand-turtle like city resemble a monolithic pangolin. No more than half a year passes by without one of these disasters shutting down the city from its base tier right up to the top. The event could be anything, a side effect of the city's culture to progress in technology faster than it can be tested. History has had plagues that need be contained, huge gas leaks that must be made safe or a monster that has broken free from a testing facility. Everyone knows, that for their own safety, no matter the threat, it is time to box up until the all clear is given. With all of this said, the time indoors is never wasted. Formcaste citizens are disposed to the notion of wisely and productively using all waking hours and as such reallocate the resource of time to projects, recovery, and progress. This is so as to prosper when the order to 'de-pangolin' descends from the Techumverate council at Formcaste's apex.

It was on one such day that Shielah Luddite, a very attractive young girl, strong of arm and ethic, was very far from home. As a tier two dweller, Shielah was forbidden from ascending more than one tier for business or pleasure until her caste status was upgraded. The Techumverate would propagate the notion that it was due to safety in times of crisis so that people could bunker quickly without travelling great distance. It was obvious to most however that these rules were in place to keep the literal pyramid city functioning like a societal pyramid with the poor and laboring at the base and the wealthy with ownership on the top and minimise shifting in between. Things are sold at higher prices at higher tiers however and those willing to risk being found by authorities can find themselves wealthy and able to fund projects that can elevate their caste status.

Not just physical items but services receive higher wage too. Shielah had become close with an older matron who saw a younger sprightly image of herself in the young soul. Tante Ursul as she was affectionately known lead the cleaning crew in a hotel for socialites and business moguls. The owner would turn a blind eye as Ursul took in a number of younger women from lower tiers. Ursul hoped to escalate their caste status and save them from the low socio-economical dangers that exist in the bottom tiers while the owner would enjoy paying a rate lower than was necessary for a worker of that tier. Everybody was a winner so long as all mouths were kept shut and smarts were used around authorities. Each night however, Shielah would still have to head home and by learning which elevator guards were lazy and when gaps in shift change occurred, she could like clockwork weave through the administered defenses.

Not this evening however. While working in the laundry, the raid sirens blared loudly as that familiar groan of machinery beneath echoed loudly through the city's surface heard and felt through the floor. "Business as usual" thought Shielah to herself. Working in a hotel, everything was in place for the workers to stay in their roles, serving and comforting the guests as they themselves waded out the unspecified catastrophe.

Through the front door of the venue burst a tall Satyr in daunting uniform. Widely recognised throughout the city as one Humer Goring. As the city's Sentinel in Chief, he was responsible for ensuring all of the city's denizens were stowed away like china in a cabinet. Usually doing so through structured patrols, scrying and incentivising the reporting of wayward neighbours, it was a shock to see Humer outside of his literal ivory tower. Followed by no fewer than five dozen heavily armed specialists in the latest of Formcaste technology, Humer paced right to the reception desk to shove the clerk aside, almost to his knees. As the Sentinel in Chief barked into the receiver, his men and women fanned out immediately, violently harassing and pushing any guests in the immediate vicinity out each of the closest exists checking their paperwork and caste status. "The Uhrwerk Hotel is hereby demanded by the Techumverate as a subjugated zone. All guests, workers and otherwise are to evacuate immediately via officers who will send to your respective tier. This display of brute power was unheard of towards influential citizens so high up in the caste system. Whatever reason this aggressive force was here for in such large number must be important if they were willing to upset so many powerful people.

In the laundry, Sheila was the last worker there having agreed to finish a few extra tasks so that some coworkers could head home early for a family celebration. On hearing the announcement however her heart leapt knowing that her illegal working status would be detected. With clean sheets thrown to the floor, her mind began to race as she decided her plan. She had no time to change from her decorative maids attire into her comfortable civilian clothes. Everything from her lacy dress to her high heeled footwear was not fit for practical application. All staff members were trained in wearing uniforms that accentuated physical traits including but not limited to height and posture for the visual gratification of guests. No other choice could be made. It was time to flee.

She ran to the nearest scryveillance office. Many glass and crystal scrying of all colours were cradled in nests on an inclined table. Each viewed common areas of the hotel such as the pool, hallways and reception. Shielah could see that in every corner, within minutes of the announcement, the hotel was had been flooded with sentries now guarding every exit and some even seemed to be searching. There was no escape. Steeling herself from freezing in fear, the young girl ran from the office, down the hallway and through the next, reaching a point that the rooms were no longer offices and utility rooms but instead guest rooms. She heard a coordinating voice come from around the next bend and with split second thinking she turned to run into the closest room. With a soft crack, she felt the sharp pain, her hand tightened fingertips deep into her cheeks with palm over her mouth to stifle a gasp. Not intended for running, the right heel of her shoe had broken off twisting her ankle. She didn't feel her teeth grinding to suppress reaction, too much ran through her mind as she quickly hobbled towards the door, letting herself in with staff key.

Throwing herself towards the underside of the bed, she could feel her heart pounding blood through her entire body. Her brain felt like it would overload and the force in her veins like it could rupture her injured foot. Through all this, she buried her face into the carpet to quieten her breath. What passed in less than a minute felt like forever. As she was just beginning to breath a little easier, the handle of the door rattled and then creaked open as a decorated boot entered Shielah's limited field of view. "I know that there is a young doe in here. You left a part of your little hoof outside on the floor." She mentally screamed at herself in reprimand. How could she be so stupid as to leave her heel behind.

Leaning down, Humer found her in an instant. While distrusted by many, he was masterful in his field and it would be a light day in Mantle before this satyr was fooled by someone hiding under a bed. The young maid scrambled to turn around and crawl out the other side of the bed to what she already knew would have no escape. Strong hands grabbed her firmly by the ankles and dragger her body towards him without elegance causing a loud yelp to escape her lips. His fingers shifted revealing the purple bruising above her right foot. "Oh, you are injured my sweet! Well, I can hardly kill such a defenceless creature. That would be dishonourable." The mention of dishonour had elevated inflection, seemingly as if Humer thought the concept a joke. Lifting her to kneel on the carpet before him, he applied his hand to her throat tightly restricting airflow and discouraging escape. "There is nowhere to go young doe. My forces have surrounded the establishment and if you try to run, although I will not chase you, they will end you on sight. The assignment at hand is being carried out as we speak and my contribution has been performed. No one will be looking for me and you will help me pass the time until the mission comes to an end." Letting the girl go who was now beginning to change colour in her face, she fell forward gasping for air.

Humer paced around the large ornate bed, throwing the curtains open unabashed. "I will let you in on a little secret as after all, you'll never tell anyone." He pointed at the sky where the moon Gisela hung in the sky. "That clump of rocks in the heavens is considered by our top astrologists and astronomers so influential that it inherits more and more heavenly bodies as time passes on. As if magnetic, it inherits more into its tight knit family but does not discriminate. Boulders of ice, steel, rock and more fly through the cosmos and are attracted to whatever is in the center of that cluster. Once every ten years, it eclipses either Kaibis or Norber and blesses us with roughly a dozen of its smallest bodies which are incredibly powerful. They have been deposited all over The Dust Plains in the past but through calculation, we have deemed its path this decade to be right on top of the city over this very hotel. My men are poised to claim whatever treasures Gisela blesses us with.

Shielah could see the moon now through the window, making a black silhouette in front of the blazing face of Norber. It was rotating quickly, something that all in the land knew as an eclipse but were completely unaware caused heavenly bodies to fall like meteors. The window curtains were thrown closed at that moment and the room lost its light. "There is no need to observe such a spectacle however when we have each other's company now is there?" Humer made a crooked smile that arched right up one side of his face. His demented visage seemed to elevate the corner of his lips right up to the horns near the top of his head, surely a trick of the light. Shielah was petrified, the image of home vivid in her mind. The place far from here where she belonged, safe and comfortable resounded within her visually and she longed to disappear from this place more than she had wanted anything in her entire life.

"I think you'd be more comfortable off the floor, no?" The Satyr began to shift his weight to leave the large curtained window. As he leaned forward, the shifting of his face seemed to occur in slow motion for the poor adrenalin charged girl. Elongating at the nose, it seemed to extend from his face a short distance before his skin began to rupture. Blood and bone shards brought forth organ matter as the figure before her's head left crudely from his torso. An iron sphere had cascaded through the window and into the rear of his skull, passing through like a bullet through butter to finally burn a hole in the carpet and imbed itself into the wooden floorboards below. The villain crumpled under its own unconscious weight and took to the floor's embrace. The smooth orb radiated heat and despite this, but Shielah closed her eyes, reaching out to touch her saviour.

Mentally scarred and stricken by the events, Shielah Luddite opened her eyes and rocked in her own bed, sprayed in blood that was not her own while holding a polished iron sphere. She recalled nothing of how she got home, nor why she could still hear the sirens as if no time had passed at all.

A Nation's Fortification
Ever in a closely packed family of entities, Gisela sits at the center of the cluster and through ways only known to her, holds them all together. While many wish to know her secrets, no one can be sure of how she keeps these heavenly bodies from drifting away despite the different materials and properties of each. Sturdy metals, softer rocks and even the coldest Icy satellites have drifted in from elsewhere and found their home in her embrace.

When either of Paracelsus's suns Kaibis or Norber pass Gisela and eclipse, the cluster expands. All of the bodies begin to rotate swiftly around each in erratic patterns without a particular central point making it still difficult for anyone to ascertain which is Gisela. While a spectacle to behold, the smallest of all of these are hurled towards Paracelsus's gravitational field and plummet to the planet. Usually no more than a dozen objects at a time, these all drop within a small area never more than two hundred meters between the most distant pair. These objects have each displayed magical properties that include teleporting organic material, perpetual rotating motion, an unending source of heat. and the conversion of oxygen to flammable gas. Now almost entirely under the ownership of the Formcaste Techumverate, there are 67 known orbs and each of them have been observed defying a single scientific law and once studied are put to use in secret.

While this knowledge is concealed from the masses, it is through these entities that range in size from a fist to a small boulder that many of the cities core services are run. Despite the drought and hardship that the climate of The Dust Plains serves, most basic needs such as food, temperature control and water purification have been provided by Formcaste in some way through the assistance of these orbs.

The Gallance
Due to the infrequency and short duration of Gisela's eclipse it is rare for someone to be born during it. Those that are however have an inherited ability or power. Able to find and connect with each other in each generation, they have termed themselves 'Of Gallance'. As if a living orb of Gisela, their powers although of lesser potency than one of the actual orbs, seem to be again in defiance of a single understood law of science. Their advantage lies in how they have learned to shape and utilise their power in ways that have more intelligent direction than an orb with an effect.