Iron Behomoths of the Steam Age

Incident Report: Loch Avie

I found myself at Loch Avie, doing my normal border perimeter patrol. All seemed quite peaceful, until...



The telltale crash and smash of foliage nearby indicated the presence of another steam mech. Since Lion and Caledonia were in the shop, this could only be an interloper.


Sure enough, this was a design I had not yet seen. The interloper appeared to have Cyrillic markings! I approached carefully and fired off the warning Klaxon.

In response, he uprooted a tree and stripped its branches to make a giant cudgel, swishing it in the air menacingly.


He made some attempt to communicate (in Russian, which I have no experience with), which I responded to via Speaking-Trumpet. My efforts, I am sad to say, did not not improve communications. He next attempted to clout me on the chassis with the tree. As a crowd of citizenry was forming, this situation had to be handled with tact.


"See here fellow, let's head home now! There's a good chap!"

But no, I got a tree trunk in the boiler casing for my attempt at diplomacy. And then the contest was on!



Suddenly, he was upon me!


Like a pair of latter day Milo of Crotons, the foreign behemoth and I engaged in a wrestling contest of epic magnitude and high stakes. Over and over we rolled, gouging at each other's steam mech armor casing with our claws and firing off the occasional cannon shot. The gentry assembled on the roof of the distillery pub knew not their peril, as several times did we come perilously close to squashing that venerable building!



Gradually, something gave on the interloper's chest boiler, and he started leaking steam alarmingly. Up he popped and strode off in the direction whence he came. I would have gave chase, had not my mech casing been given such a savage beating. I was sorely in need of repair, and headed back to headquarters, to the sound of abrupt cheering from the onlookers on the rooftops.