NOTES

¹ A scene detailed at the end of one of our previous textbooks: Agatha H and the Clockwork Princess. This was the first time the Lady Lucrezia had possessed the Lady Heterodyne.

² Lucifer Mongfish, the reluctant bête noir of the Heterodyne Boys, had not one beautiful daughter, but three. The most famous of these was, of course, Lucrezia, who eventually wed Bill Heterodyne. Serpentina Mongfish eschewed the family business and ran off with the science-adventurer Prince DuMedd, while the third, Demonica, remained in the family lair, which occupied an extinct volcano somewhere to the west of Minsk. There she continued her father’s work. You don’t hear much about Demonica Mongfish, which is just the way she wanted it.

³ Airships—at least in the lurid pages of the pfennig dreadfuls—are expected to, on a regular basis, burst into flames, be attacked by sky-pirates, struck by lightning, grapple with air kraken, and be caught up in freakish air currents that swiftly and unerringly transport them thousands of kilometers to hidden civilizations and lost continents. Surprisingly, according to the empire’s records and statistics, this is in fact the case, but it is still the safest form of travel.

⁴ The locket under discussion was given to Agatha by her uncle, Barry Heterodyne, when she began to display signs she was about to “break through,” i.e. transition into a full-blown spark. Whereas this was something to be expected, considering her lineage, Agatha began to do this at the unprecedented age of five. The locket, in brief, acted as a governor on young Agatha’s brain, effectively retarding its development. Every indication we have was that this was supposed to be a short-term fix. Unfortunately, Barry disappeared and Agatha wore the locket nonstop until it was removed when she was eighteen years old. At that point, a lot of the preliminary neurological processes of a spark’s breakthrough had already begun, but had been allowed to develop incredibly slowly. As a result, Agatha did not so much break through, as ease through. This goes a long way towards explaining her relative sanity, despite her otherwise worrying pedigree.

⁵ Statements like this have helped convince behavioral psychologists that, wherever the original Lucrezia was, she was either incredibly mad or no longer human. A large majority of those questioned opined for “both.”

⁶ Many minions have developed the knack of imitating various sparks. It only becomes a problem when somebody gets interested in the whole mind-swapping thing. It’s one of the reasons why, by common consent, this is a field of science that is never pursued, or if it is, it stays between consenting adults.

⁷ The diminutive clanks, now colloquially known as dingbots, were constructed by the Lady Heterodyne as lab assistants and were fascinating entities. The ones the Lady constructed herself served as primaries. Once activated, they operated independently, scavenging parts and constructing additional, secondary dingbots. These would then go forth to construct tertiaries. Persons of a nervous disposition have allowed themselves to become overly concerned about a future where all of Europa is buried hip deep in duodenary dingbots busy disassembling the Earth itself for parts. Fortunately, secondaries were not as good at building dingbots as the primaries are, and the tertiaries were barely capable of performing simple tasks, let alone constructing more dingbots.

⁸ After some experimentation, it was determined that the defense system of Mechanicsburg defines a league as 5.556 kilometers.

⁹ Intriguingly, there is no written record of a Roxalana Heterodyne. However, in a hundred kilometer radius around the town of Mechanicsburg, one will find assorted geographic features, clearly caused by the unleashing of cataclysmic forces; these include “Roxalana’s Chasm,” “Roxalana’s Blight,” “The Melted Mountain of Roxalana,” and a vast wasteland where nothing grows known as “Roxalana’s Comeuppance.”

¹⁰ Balloon bees (urinaria apis caeli Europa) are a species of cave-dwelling honeybee that has adapted to living within airship cells. Their signature characteristic is that they spread out in an enclosed space until they are as far as possible from each other. They then construct small, solitary dens.

¹¹ Marshmallow guns (or other similarly useless weapons) are actually fairly common accessories in your typical spark laboratory. No one knows why. They just sort of accumulate.

¹² Death-trauma-induced memory loss and the subsequent inevitable personality shift (usually resulting in deranged, murderous, fire-phobic dullards) are the biggest reason why sparks, as a rule, do not attempt to transform themselves into superior constructs.

¹³ Many sparks are perfectly willing to experiment on their fellow sparks when the occasion demands. Nevertheless, if one wishes to resurrect a specific person, one must have a functioning brain. While many people are accused of “thinking” with assorted other body parts, this does not actually work.

¹⁴ The Smoke Knights have developed a rather potent line of motivational drugs, all gathered under the family name of “Movit.” They range in strength from Movit Number One, which has an effect much like several very strong cups of coffee seasoned with horseradish poured directly into your sinuses, up to the until-now-unknown Number Eleven. Your humble professors, while advocating against unnecessary pharmaceuticals—especially in the work place—must confess it usually takes a dose of Movit Number Three to get them out of bed in the morning. It’s all right for us, you see, because it is research; as in fact, are most of the recreational excesses we indulge in. A finding reluctantly confirmed by several Faculty Review Boards.

¹⁵ The crypt in question held the Throne of Faustus Heterodyne, an ancient interface dating from before the Castle was actually finished. It allowed the Castle to speak through anyone foolhardy enough to allow specialized sockets to be implanted into his or her skull. This was an honor reserved, in recent generations, solely for the seneschals of Castle Heterodyne. It was a creepy and horrible system and thus pretty hard to circumvent.

¹⁶ Fra Pelagatti’s Lion was a device capable of generating a low-pulse ætheric “roar.” It was constructed by prisoners using parts smuggled in by Zola’s organization. It was designed to completely eradicate the artificial intelligence that operated the Castle. When activated, it astonished everyone by working perfectly.

¹⁷ Klaus Barry Heterodyne: child of Bill Heterodyne and Lucrezia Mongfish. He was a little over a year old when he was killed in the destruction of Castle Heterodyne.

¹⁸ Everyone had heard about Abominations of Science but, like unicorns, they didn’t actually believe they existed. Thus everyone was rather grateful when the third Madrid Conference of Scientific Inquiry and Philosophical Horrors—Unleashed! released a codified list of things that constituted actual Abominations of Science. Over the years, this useful list has been updated and curated by our own Transylvanian Polygnostic University and has proven of great use to teachers, courts, and record books. The only downside was that one of the conference members—a Herr Doktor Spanakopita—was so embarrassed that none of his previous efforts met the requirements that he, in a fit of pique, bred a race of unicorns, who went about stabbing people while quoting the parts of the list that covered biological abominations. Before he was stabbed to death, he was graciously acknowledged as a genuine Tamperer in Things Man Was Not Meant to Know and his oft-desecrated gravestone lists his accomplishments in full.

¹⁹ A secret lab is considered by many to be the physical manifestation of a spark’s mind. Thus they tend to be rather individualistic. Some are spotlessly clean; some are filled with dangerous trash. Some are ruthlessly efficient; some are filled with suicidal deathtraps. Needless to say, sparks are usually vocally dismissive of the labs of others, while surreptitiously making notes about things they’d wished they’d thought of themselves.

²⁰ The Muses were a set of nine clanks built long ago for the Storm King. Most people thought them lost, destroyed, or even mythical. But as we see here, this was not the case. Otilia was the Muse of Protection—a job she took very seriously.

²¹ The wizard Van Rijn appears in most popular stories of the Storm King, usually in his role as the king’s trusted friend. Little is known about his life (or death if you want to be paranoid about it), but he was certainly a genius who created scientific wonders that even the sparks of today have trouble duplicating.

²² Castle Heterodyne only remained operational at all due to a vast cavern full of Baghdad salamanders, a type of voltaic pile.

²³ A P. P. R., or Post Revivification Rush, is experienced by constructs and humans that have been brought back from what those of a pedantic turn insist upon calling “death.” All of the senses are greatly enhanced and all of the governing mechanisms to be found in the human body are temporarily suspended. This means those experiencing a P. R. R. are filled with a great euphoria and a feeling of invulnerability. This is unfortunate for those around them as while they are mentally unstable, they are capable of great speed, strength, and endurance. However, once this effect wears off they tend to crash and they crash hard.

²⁴ A microgarrote is a very thin wire that can easily slice through flesh. It is a staple of pfennig dreadfuls as an assassin’s weapon, where it is routinely strung inside doorways, slicing unsuspecting people, constructs, and clanks into messy chunks by their own momentum. This is absurd, as anyone who has ever leapt back from encountering a similarly strung spider’s web will tell you. To further disillusion our more bloodthirsty readers, we must point out that bone and metal are quite resistant to it when it is used by hand. Make no mistake: it can still do a fatal amount of damage very quickly, but there is no need to exaggerate.

²⁵ This particular King Darius was presented with a “Magic Coat” that let him fly. It worked perfectly for almost fifteen years, in which time he used it to quell rebellions, rescue princesses, assassinate rivals, and awe the general population by correctly asserting that he could see their houses. Unfortunately, he neglected to carefully read the attached Magic Owner’s Manual—especially the chapter titled “Maintenance”—and thus subsequently earned the sobriquet “The Incandescent.”

²⁶ It is the rare person who manages to actually remember their death after they have been revived. There is an amusing theory making the rounds that people would remember their death just fine. Death is natural. One goes through their entire life coming to grips with its inevitability. But resurrection—ah, that is incredibly unnatural, countermanding, as it does, the laws of gods and men and forcibly dragging a person back from the Undiscovered Country, regardless of whether or not that person actually wishes to return. That experience, being summarily wrenched apart from the natural order of things and crammed back intro one’s meaty little shell, that is the trauma so great that sanity demands its erasure. Unfortunately, this is a theory that will only be proved once science has made substantial breakthroughs in ouija technology.

²⁷ Rudolf Selnikov was part of the extended family that contained both the Sturmvoraus and the Von Blitzengaard branches. Murder, deceit, blackmail, and betrayal were everyday considerations, and that was before people got together for the holidays.

²⁸ Doctor Sun did not coddle his patients.

²⁹ The Fifty Families, who hewed to traditional monarchical practices, were loath to deal with the philosophical ramifications of resurrection, if only because it played hob with the laws of inheritance. Therefore, when you died you were treated as if you were permanently dead, regardless of whether or not you were revivified by mad science a minute later.

³⁰ While this appellation could be applied to any number of Rudolf Selnikov’s nephews, it is generally assumed he is referring to Aaronev Tarvek Sturmvoraus, who was, within the family, universally admired and personally disliked.

³¹ At this time, Rudolf Selnikov was married to the Lady Margarella Oklazavich Selnikov, an adventuress he met in his days as an explorer. She was known for her intense physical appetites. Her flying visits to Sturmhalten were tiring for the entire staff who were expected to keep up with her assorted itineraries which covered her philanthropic and charitable enterprises, her political and entertainment events, and her lectures and general meddling in the affairs of the people of Balan’s Gap. It is said there were further excesses she reserved for Lord Selnikov alone. This helped to explain both his physical fitness and his perpetually hunted look.

³² Sun Ming Daiyu was Doctor Sun’s granddaughter. While not a spark herself at this time, she was expected to breakthrough at any moment. Her younger twin, Sun Ming Mei, was one of the students on Castle Wulfenbach and had been present when Agatha’s true identity was revealed.

³³ The gargoyle sweepers were not part of the Castle Heterodyne systems, but were actually a part of the Great Hospital’s protective array. The Great Hospital prided itself on admitting anybody (though they might very well be arrested as soon as they were wheeled out of Recovery). However, this meant, as a matter of course, people who had enemies were lying around helpless. Needless to say, there was the occasional attack by people who just couldn’t resist the opportunity. Quite frequently, these attackers wound up next to their intended victims in adjoining beds, which actually had an astonishing recuperative effect on all concerned, as no one wanted to be the “last man down.”

³⁴ Despite the prohibition of all Jägers in town, General Gkika had chosen to stay in Mechanicsburg. This was part of the deal when they accepted service with the Wulfenbach Empire. As far as can be determined, in the sixteen years the deal was in play, she never left the premises of her tavern, which was merely a façade that hid a much larger subterranean establishment. This served as a hospital and hospice for those Jägers that were too ill or damaged to continue to fight. Jägers refuse to let any medical personnel treat them, except for a Heterodyne, so here they had a place where they could wait until a Heterodyne was actually found.

³⁵ Not an unusual feeling for a Smoke Knight, actually. A significant amount of the training seems to consist of going about one’s daily business while an instructor secretly watches to see how soon you notice the poison.

³⁶ One of the subtler of the many fine Smoke Knight poisons that you’ll now find available in the Castle Heterodyne gift shop, “Auntie Mehitabel’s Natural Causes” makes it look like the victim died of perfectly natural causes. Right on schedule.

³⁷ Oglavia Spüdna was the head of the empire’s espionage division. She is best known for the quote, “If you can’t say something nice about someone, you’re not very good at the whole spying thing.”

³⁸ Breaking through (or breakthrough) is the informal term used to describe the moment when a heretofore “normal” person becomes a spark. This is usually accompanied by excessive histrionics, life-changing trauma, and vast amounts of property damage. It is almost universally accepted the reason the Lady Heterodyne is as well-adjusted and sane as she is, is that she was able to ease into the physiological changes that the spark engenders in the human body without having to weather the inevitable brainstorms at the same time.

³⁹ Professor Ullebröt Snarlantz (MD, PhD, University of Vienna) was a member of the Council who worshipped Lucrezia for assorted religious and/or scandalous reasons. A strong spark, he was entrusted with the secrets of her slaver wasps. Over the years, he began to experiment, obsessed with the idea of creating different varieties of revenants. His greatest success came when he developed a breed of slaver wasp that could actually infect sparks, which had heretofore been immune. His greatest failure was when he developed a mindless, feral breed of revenant that overran the town of Passholdt, where he had located his hidden laboratory. These creatures killed or converted everyone they found within a thirty-kilometer radius before the Baron’s forces heard about it and sterilized the entire area. Good work, doc.

⁴⁰ By this point, even the most lackadaisical, just-skimming-to-pass-the-test reader of these textbooks will be familiar with Othar Tryggvassen, one of many colorful threads winding through the life of the Lady Heterodyne. A powerful spark in his own right, Othar specialized in battling sparks, foiling their schemes, and exterminating them. He had decided that since sparks were the source of what, for lack of a better term, we shall call “all evil,” then the world would be a better place if they were all eradicated. This he has pledged to do, promising to kill himself when the final spark falls dead at his feet.

⁴¹ Sanaa was not a spark herself, but had inherited the part of the Tryggvassen make-up that resulted in wandering accidentally into a never-ending series of calamitous (for others) adventures. One of these was responsible for her being sentenced to Castle Heterodyne, where she found love and . . . Oh, I’m sorry, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.

⁴² Evil beer is an actual thing. Beer is supposed to make a person feel good about themselves and the world in general. If this is not your experience, then you are drinking evil beer and should switch to something else immediately. The professoressa recommends a nice Benedictine.

⁴³ When she was sentenced to Castle Heterodyne, Sanaa realized letting people know she was the sister of one of Europa’s most prominent do-gooders was a spectacularly bad idea. Especially since Othar was, in fact, responsible for a significant number of them being in the Castle in the first place. In the cause of self-preservation, she adopted the nom de detention of Wilhelm.

⁴⁴ Behaviorists find it interesting that, whenever people enter into a discussion with a disembodied entity such as Castle Heterodyne, they invariably assume the entity is hovering somewhere above them. Some have speculated this is a throwback to ancient concepts of unseen entities being some sort of god or spirit. A slightly more sophisticated take is that if you are going to pretend to be a god or spirit, you hide somewhere near the ceiling. Proper researchers, such as your professors, who actually bothered to interview the few survivors of Castle Heterodyne, learned it was because the Castle is very fond of dropping things on people.

⁴⁵ Bill and Barry’s oft-neglected mother, the Lady Teodora Vodenicharova, insisted on raising her children away from the Castle. As a result, the Heterodyne Boys never really warmed up to the Castle. This goes a long way towards explaining their constant adventuring away from Mechanicsburg.

⁴⁶ Professor Hristo Tiktoffen (MFA, PhD, MAR, Rupert-Karls-Universität, Heisenberg) was the Chief Prisoner within Castle Heterodyne at the time of our story. He had a genuine appreciation of the Castle and served as the main facilitator between it and the other prisoners.

⁴⁷ As a rule, sparks have an intrinsic fascination with learning the secrets of life and death. Considering that thousands of mad scientists have been tinkering in this particular field for several centuries, it should come as no surprise there is an astonishingly diverse body of work on the subject. Resurrectionists are specialists. They tend to be relatively minor sparks who have collected dozens, if not hundreds, of different techniques for raising the dead, and are conversant on which method is suitable for the occasion. Despite this, their track record is actually pretty dismal. Someone considered a top-notch resurrectionist usually succeeds in only one out of fifty attempts. The industry also has one of the best written “no refunds” policy in the western world.

⁴⁸ Every army in history has included women who disguised themselves as men: to be near a loved one, to escape something so onerous that army life was an improvement, or simply because they wanted to loot and pillage in the company of like-minded companions while seeing the world. Usually, these women hid their sex from their companions and superiors. Sometimes for decades, because they would be drummed out if discovered. The big difference with the Heterodynes was that if one of their warriors was discovered to be female, they simply didn’t care.

⁴⁹ Skifandrians take weapons very seriously. A member of the warrior class spends her entire life getting better and better at wielding bigger and progressively more destructive weapons. However, there is a theoretical limit to how big and nasty a weapon one can carry without rupturing something. At that point, a supreme warrior will often aim for Omeetza, an advanced level of skill which requires no weapons at all.

⁵⁰ The Jägermonsters were the core of the army of the Heterodynes. They were monstrous reavers and pillagers, who became more physically warped as they grew older. While Bill and Barry redeemed the Heterodyne name, the deeds of the Jägers had remained fixed within the lore of Europa, and they continued to be shunned and killed when possible, which was not very often. Because of this, after the Heterodyne Boys had disappeared, the Jägers had taken service with Baron Wulfenbach who, in return for gaining an already feared army, granted them the protection of the empire. It was a deal that had worked out well for everybody.

⁵¹ After the Heterodynes disappeared, the Jägers were absorbed into the forces of Baron Wulfenbach. However, they had pledged undying loyalty to the House of Heterodyne. In order to resolve this conflict, a group of Jägers volunteered to leave the Baron’s service and dedicate their lives to searching the world for a Heterodyne heir. Everyone was sure there was no such thing and that this was, in effect, a suicide mission. But honor would be served and the Jägers, as a whole, would survive. Then Agatha appeared.

⁵² For a while, Barry and Agatha lived incognito, in the town of Beetleburg, with the constructs Adam and Lilith Clay. Adam and Lilith were themselves hiding their past identities as “Punch” and “Judy,” the famous assistants of the Heterodyne Boys. Barry disappeared shortly after he constructed the locket for Agatha.

⁵³ For the record, Dimo means Agatha probably would not venture forth on extended campaigns of conquest, carnage, and pillage. Proving that you just can’t please everybody.

⁵⁴ Little is known about the process by which a normal human was transformed into a Jäger, but we do have tantalizing clues. It involved a ritual which cumulated with the ingestion of the famous Jägerdraught. The formula is unknown, but one of its ingredients was almost certainly untreated water from the River Dyne. Odds of surviving the process were only slightly below fifty percent, and those who did survive recall it as being “the worst thing they ever experienced, and yes, completely worth it.”

⁵⁵ As hard as it is to credit, this statement is actually quite true. As we mentioned in an earlier textbook, all the Jägers took up little hobbies to stay in touch with their slowly-receding humanity. This extended even to the generals. General Goomblast was a historian, specializing in the Jägerkin. Zog studied the arts of war and, despite actually remembering what it was like to live as a horse-warrior, was adept at seeing the benefits of new technology—especially as to how it could be used to kill people. In his spare time, he was a frequent contributor to the Mechanicsburg Consumer Safety Bulletin. Khrizhan studied people and, thus, was very good at manipulating them.

⁵⁶ This exchange presents a tantalizing glimpse into the command structure of the Jägergeneral hierarchy. While the Jägers did seem to possess assorted levels of rank, it’s believed that up to a certain point these were acquired along with their hats since the ranks didn’t really seem to mean anything until they got to the rank of general. There were seven known generals and, as far as we can tell, they were all of equal rank. This could cause obvious problems, however, as we mentioned earlier, each general had a field of expertise. This exchange seems to indicate that when certain categories of situation presented themselves, the general with the closest field of expertise would assume a temporary command position.

⁵⁷ Klaus always claimed that sparks were like artists with recognizable styles. One of his talents was in being able to differentiate and recognize them. This proved useful on more than one occasion. When someone sends a giant mechanical echidna to ravage a rival’s vineyards, for example, they don’t necessarily sign it. (Although it is not unheard of for a spark to do exactly that.) Klaus claimed there were other similarities between sparks and artists, such as an inability to deal with certain realities and the associated ability to construct a reality more to their liking. Plus, they tend to be terrible with money.

⁵⁸ Spoiler alert! This is the thrilling conclusion to “The Foolish Wizard Who Dared to Love A Non-Wizard,” one of the many stories to be found in The Collected, Vouchsafed, and Completely Uncursed Tales of the Wizard Folk of Finland (Foglio & Foglio/Transylvania Polygnostic Press). The Finns have an interesting reputation among the rest of Europa that they do not go out of their way to debunk. Although the intelligentsia of Europa scoff at this obvious canard, there is no denying it is aided by the Finns seeming ability to control the weather, the actions of plants and animals, ice and fire, as well as time and space. These are, no doubt, all simple parlor tricks used to terrify outsiders and make potential invaders think twice and will surely, someday, be revealed as such by science.

⁵⁹ When Klaus had absorbed the Valley of the Heterodynes and Mechanicsburg into the empire, he was told that the area’s leading family, the Von Mekkhans, were extinct. This left a power vacuum, so the Baron appointed a town council, which was headed at this time by one Stanislaus Zuken. He was, by all accounts, a very nice fellow who spent most of his time collecting butterflies and trying to stay out of everybody’s way.

⁶⁰ Be that as it may, it is still available from Transylvania Polygnostic University Press.

⁶¹ Gaspard Masat was a contemporary of the Storm King and, indeed, was a member of his court, traveling the length of the king’s realm and reporting on what was happening. He was known for having an eye for significant details and an insightful knowledge of how people thought. Many of his reports were, for espionage purposes, written as stories. These were so popular that they were told long after the rulers he had written about had been conquered. After the fall of Valois, he found himself without a patron. To make ends meet, he produced a magnificent poetic cycle chronicling the rise, reign, and ultimate fall of the Storm King: A Villám a Korona. He folded the definitive versions of all of his stories into this work. This proved successful. Too successful, actually, as instead of writing new material, he spent the rest of his life rewriting it, changing the facts with every iteration in order to cater to the changing tastes of the public. Unfortunately, as your professors are all too aware, the public’s taste for the dramatic is a hole that can never be filled. It is said that in the final version, the climactic battle at Balan’s Gap had Andronicous leading warriors from the moon—mounted upon all the animals of the Earth—fighting an army of flaming Heterodynes that were each thirty meters tall, and that, after their defeat, their corpses formed the Transylvanian Alps. Good stuff, to be sure, but he tried to pass it off as history witnessed firsthand. Skalds may be able to get away with foolishness like that, but the universities of Europa and their various historical societies have no patience with out-and-out fiction. To make things worse, he insisted that all editions of A Villám a Korona retain the same title, marginalia, appendices, indexes, and bibliographies. This meant it was very easy to confuse the later, fabulist versions with the factual original—which was actually a unique, first-person chronicle of the Storm King’s reign. Eventually, out of sheer annoyance, all editions of his books were ordered destroyed. Thus today, while Masat is known as a great storyteller, none of his actual stories have survived. The irony!

⁶² He did not get the job.

⁶⁴ The Wulfenbach Dark Fleet was supposedly a band of smugglers that operated from within the admittedly already-extensive airship fleet of the empire. They were legendary for being able to circumvent blockades, because they already had all the empires’ codes and passwords. They were, according to the numerous stories, ballads, and epic poems told about them, good-hearted philanthropists and crusaders for the justice that occasionally fell between the empire’s cracks. They were also completely fictitious and, at this point in our story, the Baron was getting rather impatient waiting for someone to fill this obvious ecological and sociological niche. He was beginning to think that, like so many other seemingly obvious things, he would have to do it himself.

⁶⁵ Mechanicsburg, as has been mentioned elsewhere, was a town not traditionally known for engaging in much commerce. Historically, they obtained their vast wealth by plunder and tribute. When they needed something they could not grow, produce, or build themselves they, as often as not, went out and stole it.

Still, even among brigands, one will find artisans and so, in the unique crucible that bubbled within the shadow of the Heterodynes, the people of Mechanicsburg occasionally brought forth things that other, ostensibly sane, people actually wanted. For example: about four hundred and seventy-five years ago, one Simaeous von Uǘrsk brewed up “a rather amusing little herbal digestive” that relied on local ingredients, including assorted vegetation and insects that had originally been mutated into existence by imbibing the toxic waters of the Dyne. It quickly became the Other Thing the town was known for: Snezek. Snezek (the name came from the noise that a person invariably made the first time they tasted it) was soon being served at late-night dinner parties across three continents. Its presence at a gathering indicated the hosts were madcap bohemians who dared to dance along the edges of propriety and that, pretty soon, those present could expect someone to be tossed into the fountain wearing naught but their unmentionables.

⁶⁶ The story of the commercialization of the Mechanicsburg snail is a fascinating one in its own right and deserves its own book. But, in brief, it started when a merchant from Mechanicsburg discovered that a colony of hometown snails had bred within the bedding of leaf mulch he had used to cushion a fragile load of machinery he was delivering to Amsterdam. By the time he arrived, he had enough snails that he could prepare a respectable feast for his buyer, who was so impressed that he ordered more. The rest is history.

⁶⁷ When Baron Wulfenbach took over Mechanicsburg, the van Mekkhan family resolved to not give the Heterodyne secrets to an outsider. Therefore, the Baron was informed that all of the Heterodyne’s seneschals were dead and their knowledge lost. As an additional subterfuge, the family adopted the name of “Heliotrope.” Of course everyone in town knew who they really were. Now, an outsider might say that a secret of this magnitude being kept from Baron Wulfenbach (of all people) for over fifteen years strains credulity, which is fair, considering the Baron’s reputation for ferreting out secrets. Mechanicsburg, however, is a very insular place, and telling Klaus the van Mekkhans were still around would have gone against the best wishes of the Heterodynes. This was something that any Mechanicsburg native would have been almost incapable of doing. Besides, “putting on over” on outsiders is considered a fine sport.

⁶⁸ Longer than that, actually. People began to do the math regarding the House of Heterodyne’s lopsided balance sheets as early as the 1300s.

⁶⁹ Kleegon had been in charge of the count’s forces and had choreographed a battle against the Baron that, while appearing formidable, had allowed the Wulfenbach forces to win handily. What had caught the Baron’s eye was that, when the battle was over, the defeated enemy lines spelled out: “HELP. I AM A PRISONER IN THE CASTLE. SECOND FLOOR, THIRD DOOR FROM THE LEFT.”

⁷⁰ Drakken horses were an unusually successful cross between regular horses and lizards, with the added “benefit” of breathing fire if properly coaxed. Unlike regular horses they grew torpid in the cold and could only move quickly in short bursts. Like regular horses they tended to explode if allowed to eat clover, which they will bite through concrete barriers to get at. This campaign was one of the few on record where they were actually deployed.

⁷¹ Herr Doktor Eeliocentric Chouté (MD, MEN, Cambridge) was often accused of not having a brain in his head. This was technically true, as it was located in a fortified container atop the staff he carried with him at all times. This had two noticeable effects: On the one hand, he now had a brain that could be tuned so it could ignore the thousand-and-one distractions a messy organic body produces that interrupt one’s thinking. As a result, Chouté was a brilliant intellectual, capable of clear and fast insights that easily propelled him into the Baron’s inner circle. On the other hand, he was a man desperately afraid of losing his humanity and, thus, he allowed himself to thoroughly embrace his emotional responses. This made him overly loud at times, but Klaus liked the fact that he was entirely incapable of subterfuge.

⁷² Professor Julius Senear [Litore Aquilonaris Elementary (advanced program), ScD, DVM] specialized in creating flying anthropoids. Many sparks have a favorite field of study, to be sure, but few were as dedicated to a central concept as Professor Senear. He wanted viable flying apes, did everything he could to make this dream come true, and succeed he did. It is thanks to his tireless efforts that at least three separate and distinct species of Aeroapes® can be found today, infesting the towers and roofs of Europa’s cathedrals, castles, and opera houses.

⁷³ Ethics in Government was one of the groundbreaking classes students on Castle Wulfenbach, many of whom were destined to be rulers or the advisors to rulers, were required to take. Sometimes over and over again until they could pass it or at least fake it convincingly.

⁷⁴ There is some argument as to what mechanica vitæ actually is. At first glance, most engineers assume it is an antiquated term of the Heterodyne’s devising for simple electricity. However, one must remember that, when dealing with the Heterodynes and their creations, nothing is ever simple. The Castle has intimated that several of its more arcane mechanisms are powered by the mysterious energies it extracts from the River Dyne. These are the same energies that mutated wild animals, served as a component of the Jägerdraught, and killed almost anyone who dares to drink the water. It was also instrumental in the Lady Heterodyne briefly achieving a state of being that no one really wants to call “Godhood,” but there you are. From this we are forced to conclude that there might be something more in the water than can be understood by conventional science. Since all of this mysterious energy is extracted by the Castle before it is allowed to proceed out into the world, examination is impossible at this time.

⁷⁵ Doktor Thanos Wrenchetkya, (PhD, MAE, MTE, Krakow University of Dangerous and Ungainly Concepts)—known as Doctor Wrench—was a respected spark in his own right, but as a person, lacked any interest in telling other people what to do. This unique skill set made him one of the most prized assistants in Europa. Within Castle Heterodyne, he quickly became one of the community leaders amongst the prisoners, and later became one of the Lady Heterodyne’s most valuable assistants.

⁷⁶ Captain Vole was once a Jägermonster, but renounced the Jägertroth or the Jägermonsters renounced him. Either way, he now holds loyal Jägermonsters in utter contempt.

⁷⁷ Faustus Heterodyne was one of the most brilliant of the old Heterodynes, but not in a good way. He was the one who learned how to leach the poisonous energies from the Dyne and was the one who actually created the intelligence that animated Castle Heterodyne. He based its mind upon his own, naturally, which explains quite a bit about the Castle’s predilections and temperament.

⁷⁸ Grand Guignol is a form of decadent “theatre” where the performers pretend to maim, torture, and messily kill each other for the edification of a jaded public. It flourished briefly in Paris, where it was officially frowned upon, but was not actually illegal because it did fall under the heading of “Art.” Impresarios kept trying to outdo each other with more and more horrifying spectacles, until Professor Charnel and His Demented Death Clanks booked Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol for one night. He promised A Show to End All Shows and, in this, he proved himself amazingly prophetic. He had neglected to explain to the aforementioned death clanks that it was, in fact, merely a show.

⁷⁹ There is a design aesthetic amongst certain of the Parisian fashion houses that classify people according to aspects of their physiognomy into various “seasons.” Pale, blue-eyed blondes with brittle laughs who like to stake their victims out on ice floes tend to be “Winters,” and so on.

⁸⁰ It used to be called the Avenue of the Alchemists, then Exploding Row, then the Alley of Odors, then the Corrosive Corridor, then . . . well . . . you get the idea. This latest name was put into place by the Mechanicsburg Chamber of Commerce in a desperate attempt to remove an embarrassment from the town’s maps. Surprisingly, within twenty-four hours of the new signs going up, people actually started producing gold. This has provided a rich field of experiment for those who study the power of names and expectations.

⁸¹ In Mechanicsburg, when one is making end of life decisions, one of the options offered is to be reanimated as a Crypt Master. These (let’s be honest) hideous creatures are responsible for the general maintenance and caretaking of the subterranean parts of the town where even jaded, lifelong residents are hesitant to go. Even those who have chosen it admit they are now trapped in an endless existence as a twisted mockery of life—but it does give Mechanicsburg’s more civic-minded senior citizens something to do.

⁸² A ton (or tonne) is an outdated unit of measure for weight used throughout most of Europa up until a century or two ago (depending on where you are). It is equivalent to somewhere between 910 kilograms (known as a short ton) to one thousand kilograms (known as a long ton). It is a variant of the word tun, which is still used as the word for the largest barrel commercially made, capable of holding (approximately) 954 liters. The Jägers consider anyone joining their ranks to be a newcomer until they have drunk enough liquor to empty a tun and then spilt enough ichor to fill it back up. They have a rather jolly little song about this, which you really don’t want to listen to while you’re eating.

⁸³ When Klaus Wulfenbach assumed command of Mechanicsburg, the actual government, loath to reveal the family secrets, had claimed the Von Mekkhan family was extinct. Klaus had established a City Council, which contained enough of the old movers and shakers of the town that there was no trouble at all in maintaining the Von Mekkhan family’s secrecy, while still managing to get things done.

⁸⁴ A local term for the more prosaically named Street of Dogs, which was where many of Mechanicsburg’s cheaper hotels can be found.

⁸⁵ A reasonable assumption, as the City Council had celebrated Van’s first day on the job by telling him he was expected to personally meet and shake hands with every one of the creatures hidden within the town. He only realized this was a joke after his third attempt to “shake hands” with a creature who did not actually possess them.

⁸⁶ Scientists have calculated the amount of energy released by a well-educated and erudite cusser. It seems to actually have a positive effect on projects that require physical manipulation of mechanical forces. What’s more, the more florid the language the more it helps. Engineers have known this for as long as there have been engineers.

⁸⁷ Just for the record, he wasn’t.

⁸⁸ The Monsters’ Gate was the entrance traditionally reserved for the creations of the Heterodyne, many of whom were large, loud, or socially inept.

⁸⁹ When the Jägermonsters allowed themselves to be absorbed into the armies of the empire, part of the deal was that they could no longer enter Mechanicsburg as it was assumed they would be a bad influence on the townspeople. In the years since the deal had been struck—what with the perennial rumors of smuggling, black markets, and assorted financial hanky-panky amongst the townspeople—compared to the stellar performance of the Jägers, Klaus had often wondered who had been influencing whom.

⁹⁰ We are all going to die. Maybe tomorrow, maybe a thousand years from now, but in the end Grandfather Death will take each of our hands, and no mistake. Throughout history, nearly everyone has hoped that this particular rule might not apply to them, whether because of blue blood, excessive attention to diet and exercise, money, or simply a refusal to acknowledge such a thing is even possible. The Doom Bell was crafted in such a way that, on hearing it, all this self-delusion is stripped away. The listener is forced to come face-to-face with the complete and total understanding that death—their death—is inevitable. Most people do not take it well. Counterintuitively, Mechanicsburg natives, who were almost guaranteed to hear the bell several times throughout their lives, were known as a people with an incredible joie de vivre, living their lives to the fullest. This actually makes sense, as the tolling of the bell periodically reminded them that they should enjoy themselves while they could.

⁹¹ As someone who had been raised by a construct blacksmith capable of throwing a sledgehammer through a meter-thick wall, Agatha understood this concept instinctively.

⁹² The Junior Heterodyne Society started over a century ago as an informal gang of Mechanicsburg youth. Their antics so amused Machiavelli Heterodyne that he made them the official town militia. Over the years, Machiavelli and subsequent Heterodynes encouraged them by providing uniforms, a barracks, and the power to “keep the peace” (not that there was a lot of trouble when the Heterodyne was in residence). Lest anyone be under the mistaken impression the Heterodynes of old harbored anything remotely resembling philanthropic urges, it should be pointed out that the J. H. S. was regularly supplied with experimental weapons and other devices, and was expected to use them. Opinions differ as to whether this was actually for the purposes of testing or whether it was purely for the entertainment of the Heterodyne.

⁹³ By now, any reader of these chronicles should understand that when we say “loud,” we’re essentially talking about sonic weaponry.

⁹⁴ Frau Hoggle’s dog, on the other hand, was a perfectly normal Batavian Ripping Hound, who went into a murderous rage whenever anyone attacked Frau Hoggle by, for instance, breathing her air.

⁹⁵ Living in Mechanicsburg, of course, he had seen ghosts (or as near to as made no difference), but this was like seeing a ghost he didn’t know.

⁹⁶ Prisoners sentenced to Castle Heterodyne found management to be rather laissez-faire, in that they were free to do pretty much anything they wanted. Antisocial behavior was regulated by the other prisoners, who were themselves no models of patience and rationality. Escape was prevented by collars that exploded if they went beyond the Castle doors. It was a very cold-blooded system, but after even a superficial perusal of the prisoners’ list of crimes, no one felt sorry for them at all.

⁹⁷ Thus began Krassimir Oublenmach’s storied career as a loyal servant of the Heterodyne family. This was a categorization he strenuously denied throughout his life, but the results spoke for themselves and they spoke through a solid gold megaphone. However, this is all in the future and so, for now, we must leave him lying on the tower roof, his future before him, as this present chronicle is not his story.

⁹⁸ The Awful Tower is the lair of Simone Voltaire, the Master of Paris. At the time of our story, he had been ruling that independent city state for over two centuries. The tower itself is still one of the tallest standalone structures in Europa. It was universally despised by Parisians when it was first erected, but in the last hundred years it has become the international symbol of Paris, even as the locals make a great show of pretending that it doesn’t exist.

⁹⁹ The town of Mechanicsburg sits within the Valley of the Heterodynes, circled by impassible mountains and steep chasms. It was chosen by the family for its inaccessibility. Strategists over the centuries have declared that a well-equipped invading army could be thwarted by one strategically placed man armed with a few rocks, a lava cannon, a flock of winged, acid-spitting worms, and “those windup things with the mirrors that make horses explode.” They spoke from experience.

¹⁰⁰ In addition to Castle Sturmhalten to the west and the original Castle Wulfenbach to the east, the ring was completed by the Refuge of Storms to the north and Castle Von Drakken to the south.

¹⁰¹ The Lady Heterodyne is referring to the ambient electricity accumulators that Gilgamesh Wulfenbach used to great effect against the walking battle fortresses of the Knights of Jove in their attack on Mechanicsburg. This is all chronicled in our previous textbook Agatha H and the Voice of the Castle.

¹⁰² Where this nameless soldier took the infamous hat has been a subject of speculation for years. However, it was recently discovered in an abandoned Wulfenbach outpost on one of the Azores islands. It currently occupies a place of honor in the Musée de la Mode et du Textile in Paris.

¹⁰³ Amit Patel was the authentic captain in command of the Castle Wulfenbach airship. He had been an air pirate until he had been recruited by Klaus. He, thereafter, served from Castle Wulfenbach’s launch until its destruction. Klaus hired a lot of air pirates. On the whole, they proved to be superior flyers, knew the importance of taking orders, and were good in a fight.

¹⁰⁴ The title of “Highness” is generally considered the exclusive property of traditional monarchy, which the Wulfenbach Empire was most definitely not. The inference, therefore, is that Gilgamesh Wulfenbach claimed this title by relation to his as-yet-unidentified mother. This was, in retrospect, a masterful political stroke on the Baron’s part, doubly effective because it was unexpected. A great deal of the longstanding friction between the Baron and the Fifty Families—the loose cabal of royal houses united by intricate bloodlines and a growing realization they were being replaced by the ascendant spark meritocracy—was the result of the Baron’s unwillingness to acknowledge that the innate property of royalty was a thing worth considering. Although he had sufficient temporal power to easily have declared himself “Emperor” and suffer few, if any, dissenters, Klaus Wulfenbach would never bother to call himself, nor allow anyone else to proclaim him, anything other than his legitimately inherited title of “Baron.” Thus, when he revealed his son and heir theoretically occupied an acceptable position within the Fifty Families established hierarchal structure, it immediately swung several influential Houses from detractors to actual supporters.

¹⁰⁵ Hogfarb’s Resplendent Immolation is one of the more entertaining of the bioengineered diseases. The sufferer changes color, shifting quicker and quicker through an unnatural palette until they literally go up in an impressive pyrotechnic display fueled by burning fat. It has the distinction of being one of the few very horrible things we discuss in these textbooks that was not created by a member of the Heterodyne family.

¹⁰⁶ Dropwalls, as their name suggests, are gigantic barriers designed to be dropped from the air to act as containment units and siege towers. One would think that dropping a multi-ton machine would be the best way to surround your enemy with a multi-ton heap of rubble, but no. Dropwalls are designed so that when they impact, not only do they remain intact, but compression devices along the base “harvest” the kinetic energy of the impact, using it to activate and power up the walls’ built-in defense mechanisms.

¹⁰⁷ Which, in fact, your dear professor was, until he was fortuitously released from this unjustified incarceration by people searching for the as yet unrevealed Lady Heterodyne. The sordid details of my time in “stir,” as we hardened criminals call it, can be found in one of our previous textbooks: Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess.

¹⁰⁸ Those actions which Prince Sturmvarous refers to as “antics,” are clearly included in Transylvania Polygnostic University’s Research & Acquisitions Guidelines:

Method #18: Small conflagrations deemed an acceptable method of determining the location of a secretive libraries’ rare and important books, but only if the library in question has a diligent, devoted, and spry staff of sufficient personnel.

¹⁰⁹ Giant eastern European smudge beetles (Lymexylon lacrimo atramento Europa gigantus) are filthy animals that feast on wood pulp and have a predilection for libraries. If that was not bad enough, when they eat books, they digest the paper, but pass the ink through their digestive system almost untouched, leaving large, inky smears wherever they go. Prince Sturmvarous’ accusation is therefore particularly hateful and, I assure you, completely false.

¹¹⁰ Scurrilous, yes—but not untrue.

¹¹¹ According to anecdotal evidence, it appears that sometime during their student days in Paris, Prince Sturmvarous was captured by Bangladesh and forced to serve on her ship. Whether this was done at Gilgamesh’s behest or on her own initiative remains unclear. From hints we have gathered from multiple sources, he did not have a good time.

¹¹² Such as leaving the captain’s presence while still alive and relatively unharmed.

¹¹³ This was understandable several times over. The constructs Punch and Judy were the personal servants of Bill and Barry in their adventures. Once Bill wed, they retired. After the Heterodyne Boys vanished, the constructs disappeared from Mechanicsburg as well. Many assumed they had followed the Boys into oblivion. In actuality, they had moved to Beetleburg and assumed new identities as Adam and Lilith Clay. However, Barry Heterodyne knew their location, as one night he appeared at their home, a six-year-old Agatha in tow. When he vanished again, after living with them for almost a year, he left Agatha behind, promising to return “in a few months.” Instead, eleven years passed. At that point, Agatha was caught up by the Wulfenbachs in the takeover of Beetleburg. They stormed Castle Wulfenbach to rescue her (though there are endless arguments as to whether they should have), but in the process they were killed by Otilia, who was trapped within the form of Von Pinn. Their bodies were collected by Gilgamesh, who began the process of reanimation. You really should just read the earlier books.

¹¹⁴ There is much evidence to support this declaration. The Clays were the young Heterodyne Boys’ first constructs and, as such, they had notable flaws. Over the subsequent years, these were never corrected. It is unclear as to whether this was a result of a lack of inclination on the Boys’ part, or a resistance on the Clay’s part to being further “worked on” by the Boys. If the latter was the case, it would be quite understandable, as constructs that went under the knife for simple repairs or adjustments, often awoke to find themselves sporting additional limbs, prosthetics, or an uncontrollable desire to burrow through mountains. When Gilgamesh reassembled and revived them, he automatically corrected many small flaws, and one or two major ones, sometimes without even knowing that he was doing so. This lead to several surprising discoveries, not the least of which was that when he ate spicy food, Adam no longer belched fire.

¹¹⁵ Ladies and gentlemen, the Bernoulli Equation: P1+¹/2+pv²/1+pgh1= P2+¹/2pv2²+pgh2. We must confess that neither of your professors really understand what it signifies. When an equation starts adding those little letters and off-register numerals, we just throw our hands up and have another drink. This is why, on those rare occasions in our classes when actual math is required, we flaunt university policy and allow our students to bring in their own abacus.

¹¹⁶ Augustín Betancourt (GDE, San Isidro Royal College): In addition to his infamous, life-ending submersible, Betancourt had a long career as an engineer, aeronaut, and intelligence agent. All careers that called for speed.

¹¹⁷ Four-gear landwalkers were once a common sight at Europa’s universities and were frequently trotted out for homecomings, pep rallies, and assorted pranks. Today, of course, they’ve been replaced by the much more efficient coal-powered third-wheel flex-rod-and-bucket walkers that now dominate what remains of the academic landscape.

¹¹⁸ At this time, chemistry was still a hodgepodge of alchemy, zymurgy, necromancy, metallurgy, and cooking. As a result, chemicals still retained the older and, some would say, more romantic, names from antiquity. This was unfortunate, because some names were so popular they were applied to any number of different concoctions, depending on where you were and who wrote down the recipe, often with hilarious/tragic results. One of the great advances of the current empire was the systematic codification of chemicals, which has saved many a researcher’s life and dignity. We have, for assorted reasons (mostly because they sound cooler), retained the old naming system whenever possible.

¹¹⁹ For quite a long time, lightning was the power source of choice for your more over-the-top mad science needs. Unfortunately, one cannot just assume you’ll have a sufficiently pyrotechnic storm at the same time one has a potential abomination of science slowly decomposing on the slab. Thus the Lightning Futures Exchange, which banked gigawatts during Mechanicsburg’s frequent lightning storms and then parceled them out to its clients when needed. Closed for over a decade at this point, the building was still standing only because the vast rooftop array of lightning rods and assorted accumulators provided a tourist-pleasing show whenever a thunderstorm blew through.

¹²⁰ While they do have a town watch, many of your smaller municipalities do not have the resources to support a permanent standing army. Even Mechanicsburg, which has a sizable standing force of assorted monsters, clanks, and semi-autonomous death machines, has the Mechanicsburg Defense Force. Every adult citizen is expected to be able to serve either under arms or in a support capacity in an emergency. They are further required to spend one week out of the year performing maintenance or repair and another week brushing up on military exercises. In recent years, standards had begun to slip badly, and many citizens were able to fulfill their yearly requirements simply by volunteering to deal with tourists.

¹²¹ The Heterodynes have not given a lot of things to the world that the world has actually wanted, but the monster wagon that is now part of the standard equipment of almost every town in Europa is one of the rare exceptions. These stout conveyances have been engineered to contain creatures capable of any number of deadly attacks and, if properly maintained, have never been known to fail. The Mechanicsburg Monster Wagon Works is one of the few local industries that is highly regarded throughout the civilized world and has been for over two centuries. A suspicious person might wonder why the Heterodynes of old allowed this unarguably beneficial export to thrive. The answer is that each wagon secretly signaled whenever it was used and, as often as not, agents of the Heterodyne, suitably incognito, would appear and offer to buy the now-captured monster from the victimized town. These they brought home and they were studied by the Heterodynes, incorporating any particularly nasty innovations into their own future creations. The Heterodynes knew that staying as feared as they were required capital outlay and continued hard work and were afraid of neither.

¹²² A scene that has been thrillingly detailed in our first textbook: Agatha H and the Airship City.

¹²³ Kolee-dok-Zumil is the contract that bound the lady Heterodyne to the Princess Zeetha. A rough translation could be read as “Teacher trains student,” but there is a great deal more to it than just that. A better understanding can be gleaned from the unfortunately titled: Lust, Honor, Sex & Death Among the Lost Warrior Women by Professoressa Kaja Foglio. Which, she wants made perfectly clear, hit the publisher’s doorstep with the title An Ethnographic Overview of the Societal Mores and Underlying Philosophical Principals of the Skifandrian Warrior Queens. The fact that, under its current title, it is currently in its twentieth printing, is irrelevant.

¹²⁴ Fafflenarg beasts (Fafflenarg gigantus skifandrus) were unknown to Europa at this time. These days, of course they have become a familiar part of every Europan’s table, known to us as Tasty Breakfast Beasts™, even though they are, by law, only eaten at lunch.

¹²⁵ Othar Tryggvassen did tend to run through female assistants rather quickly. Contrary to scurrilous rumors promulgated by his detractors, hardly any of them were killed in the line of duty. Most of them simply discovered the job looked a lot less glamorous up close. One of the principle reasons for this seems to be that while there is no denying he was a great lover of women, Othar was unshakeable in his resolution to never dally with an assistant. For many of his companions, that had rather been the whole point.

¹²⁶ The Court of Gears is the section of the town where one will find not only the great central factory, but hundreds of individual manufacturers and workshops.

¹²⁷ Doctor Jupiter Bren (MD, PhD) was the driving force behind the development of the creatures known as wasp weasels.

¹²⁸ This had, in fact, been a popular fad amongst sixteenth-century eastern European blacksmiths

¹²⁹ The G. M. C. C. P. M. S. B. S. S. J. is but one of approximately twenty organized street gangs that roam Mechanicsburg. Many of them are hundreds of years old. While most cities labor endlessly to eradicate this sort of thing, the rulers of Mechanicsburg long ago coopted and deputized them. They are considered an integral part of the town’s early warning system.

¹³⁰ Known colloquially in the Mechanicsburg region as “the madness place.” When a spark is in this state, they are blind and deaf to almost any outside influence that would interfere with what they are doing at the moment.

¹³¹ We, your professors, have tried, for quite some time, to receive permission from the proper authorities to detail within these books the actual mechanisms and processes by which the creatures known as slaver wasps infiltrate and control their hapless victims. We have been informed we will not be allowed to do so under any circumstances, as they do not want us to “give anyone any bright ideas.” While we rail against this dictate in the abstract, the real world sensibility of it is inarguable, and thus we shall continue to portray this process in a way that ignorant and shortsighted critics will no doubt continue to call “fabulist hogwash.” This is simply yet another way that we, your professors, suffer for our art. We hope you appreciate it.

¹³² Herr Docktor Getwin Mittelmind (PhD, MD, BFA, University of Salzburg) was a spark who specialized in mad psychology. A specialized field to be sure. He was not locked away in Castle Heterodyne because he built giant anteaters. No, he was locked away in Castle Heterodyne because he could take a perfectly ordinary group of people and within six days they would build a giant anteater—because it was the logical thing to do.

¹³³ Professor Dyson Iskenshod theorized that narwhals, which remain severely understudied animals, actually spent part of their life cycle underground and used their horns to dig. When anatomical studies failed to validate any of his theories, he turned to engineering and designed and built mechanical narwhals that were, in fact, able to function as he claimed they would. As far as mad science goes, this was considered a stunning success by everyone but zoologists, biologists, and anybody who had ever owned an aquarium. When last heard from, he was in the process of attempting to breed normal narwhals with his creations.

¹³⁴ The Mechanicsburg Kraken Works was a private project of Nemo Heterodyne. It was built underground so as to have access to the subterranean lakes created and fed by the Dyne, which circuitously flows into the Danube. He planned to become a river pirate, but abandoned the project when he discovered a heretofore unknown allergy to grog. Determined to recoup the vast expenditure the project had accrued, the town leaders marketed bespoke mechanical kraken to the world at large and did a surprisingly brisk business until the fad was eclipsed by airships—a fad that remains ongoing until this day.

¹³⁵ As we have mentioned, dragons are not really considered a viable life form, as they come into direct conflict with humans over things like money and power, which, frankly, is just asking for it. The comments made by General Zog give credence to ancient rumors that the Jägers were instrumental in the hunting of dragons back when it was a sensible career choice.

¹³⁶ Dragons were programmed to be intensely territorial and to challenge all other dragons, no doubt as a way to impress dragon females. This is even more tragic as there has never been a female dragon. Even insane alchemists had survival instincts.

¹³⁷ The record among humans is unclear about this, but according to the few remaining dragons, it is firmly accepted that Franz was indeed the first dragon.

¹³⁸ The Siege of Mechanicsburg is considered the crowning moment of glory of the empire’s Phantasmagoric and Misdirection Division. An offshoot of Klaus’ psychological warfare division, they specialized in misrepresenting battlefields. Either by trying to convince enemies that there were more Wulfenbach units present than there actually were, or by trying to lure enemies in by disguising the army as a smaller unit, or even something else entirely—like a herd of sheep. Although they had been used throughout Klaus’s reign, never again would they have such a stunning success.

¹³⁹ The Dreen were the strangest and most inexplicable members of Klaus Wulfenbach’s collection of oddities and monsters. Almost everything about them was shrouded in mystery, such as where the Baron found them, why they consented to work for him, or what the actual nature of their powers and abilities were. Most worrying was the evidence they were creatures that existed “outside of time.” They frequently displayed foreknowledge of things to come, yet were often flummoxed by events they had just experienced. A lot of this might have been more acceptable if they were avuncular old men who lived in a traveling box or something, but frankly, they were creepy as Hell.

¹⁴⁰ The Red Cathedral of Mechanicsburg has its reliquaries, but the things they contain are not the bones of saints.

¹⁴¹ The Gargoyle Squad of Notre-Dame de Paris has become rather famous as the final refuge of last resort for any number of Europa’s spark-produced and then abandoned megafauna. The Master of Paris claims they help to keep the city protected and dramatically curtail the pigeon population.

¹⁴² Castle Wulfenbach is festooned with numerous mechanical gargoyles. These are not merely decorative, but serve as the first line of defense against air pirates, aeroapes, sky kraken, balloon barnacles, and the occasional meteorite. It is unusual for them to be detached from this assignment.

¹⁴³ Golf is a “sport” that became popular in Scotland in the fifteenth century. Players stalk about a predetermined course, driving small balls into holes in the ground with specially shaped sticks known as clubs. Devotees, of which there are many, claim it is one of the “purest” sports, as it develops nothing in the player that could be useful in the mundane world.

¹⁴⁴ After learning about Euphrosynia Heterodyne’s troubled relationship with the Storm King, Saturn Heterodyne’s turbulent marriage, or the present drama unfolding that is a direct result of Bill Heterodyne’s marriage to Lucrezia Mongfish, one could easily believe that certain Heterodynes seem to be particularly unlucky in love. Sadly, this sort of thing was actually the norm as far as the family went. The Heterodynes constantly sought to embrace danger, adventure, strife, madness, and relished injecting sturm und drang into every aspect of their (and everyone else’s) lives. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that, as far as they were concerned, courting and matrimony were simply two more playing fields for this sort of thing. Perversely, one of the greatest books dedicated to the resolution of relationship difficulties and the preservation of marriage is Herr Doktor Danjharl Savage’s (PhD, SE, University of Amsterdam) historical overview and analysis of Heterodyne courting: Don’t Do This. (Corbettite Press/Belfast).

¹⁴⁵ A suspicion that was quite justified. Empire records show that when Mechanicsburg was invaded, the Baron deliberately selected the empire’s most troublesome, unsustainable, and high-maintenance units to lead the charge. One justification was that the members of these spark-created units would be more capable dealing with whatever mad science the citadel of the Heterodynes would throw at them. But the clearly discernible subtext was that if someone had to be turned into balloon animals, on the whole, the empire felt slightly more comfortable with it happening to established abominations of science, who might not even mind the change.

¹⁴⁶ Originally devoted to dentists, taxidermists, saw sharpeners, the makers of man-traps, and combs. Today it houses many of Mechanicsburg’s portraitists and engravers. No one knows why.

¹⁴⁷ The glorious dawn in question had been the signal that some now-forgotten, long-awaited revolution was to begin. Unfortunately, it rained that day and, for the conspirators, things went downhill from there. The never-activated Undead Army sat, unclaimed, in a storage locker for two years until the empire bought them at auction. This was not the strangest way that the empire had ever acquired new troops, but it was unquestionably the most cost effective.

¹⁴⁸ An unfortunate name, but still one to be reckoned with.

¹⁴⁹ When Princess Zeetha first arrived in Europa, everyone who had brought her here and knew how to get to Skifander—or even knew that it actually existed—was killed by air pirates. Since no one else Zeetha met in the subsequent three years of her travels across the length and breadth of Europa had ever heard of the place, Zeetha had begun to think she had made the whole thing up in a fever dream. This fear was shattered and her sanity restored when Agatha casually mentioned that she had heard stories of the place from Barry Heterodyne.

¹⁵⁰ Even after all this time, the mechanics of how the Castle is able to blithely manipulate itself, not to mention the rest of the town of Mechanicsburg, remains one of the Heterodyne family’s most closely guarded secrets. The fact that the Castle admits it cannot control glass goes a long way towards explaining Mechanicsburg’s thriving glass industry, which is well known for being able to supply everything from delicate laboratory glassware up to pre-made madness-inducing mirror mazes. There was a brief fad for these within the homes of Mechanicsburg’s idle rich . . . until they all went mad, of course. Some people just have too much money.

¹⁵¹ When the Heterodyne Boys inherited the Castle and the town, they realized they had a monumental job ahead of them: converting the Mechanicsburg economy from “pure or chaotic evil” to what Professor Garibaldi Gygax (LLM, The School for Advanced Studies of the Unnatural World, Lucca) referred to as “lawful evil.” Realizing they couldn’t turn a town of minions, pirates, and henchmen into honest people overnight, they began slowly by turning them into hucksters, which, while it lay upon a bed of solid, accountable mercantilism, still allowed for a generous exercise of low-level chicanery. Repurposing the various death machines that littered the place was a bit more problematic, but as we see here, they were working on it.

¹⁵² Yes, this was, in fact, Lieutenant Yarl Bollet, who’s firsthand account, The Fall and Rise of Mechanicsburg: One Half-Hour of Terror (Transylvanian Polygnostic University Press), became, on its release, the most read and, at the same time, most banned book in Europa. A very effective use of viral marketing.

¹⁵³ A derogatory term, long used by outsiders, to refer to the natives of Mechanicsburg.

¹⁵⁴ For the record, no ethical teller-of-tales would tell the story of the Fog Merchants to children. It might give them ideas.