Chadwick Yates and the Cannibal Shrine — Brad Williams

Grab your Express rifle and journey forth into a safari of fascinating cultures, marvelous landscapes, and new discoveries! Hang up your top hat and tweeds and don your khakis! Leave the dreary gas lamps and cobbles of civilized Cavendia behind, and go full steam onto the Black Continent, land of the Nadhili people and a thousand uncharted wonders! There dine with Faeries over filet mignon medallions with a decanter of potion, soak in the hot springs of the bog-dwelling Anurans with a nice cup of tea, take an evening walk underground with Gremlins, or dare to climb to the mountain palaces of Altaicans! Only beware of the terrible Servants who still stalk the lands the sorcerer once ruled. Though their master is long gone, the nefarious majik that made them keeps them hunting for human blood, and these sentinels take many deadly forms: bulls turned to minotaurs, wolves turned to hellacious hounds, scarecrows brought to life, and gargoyles forged of living stone! Make friends with the locals, if you can understand their most-curious traditions, and you will have valuable allies! Recommended Equipment: water-proof waxed canvas rucksack, stout boots, evening pipe, binoculars, thorough understanding of bushcraft, expert shooting ability, brandy flask, and mustache wax. About the Series With safari-style adventure and steampunk charm, "The Adventures of Chadwick Yates" brings fantasy out of the middle ages and into an industrial era. Express rifles and minotaurs collide as an ambassador and his secretary go on an expedition of the Black Continent of Tanzia, where strange sentient races and wicked sentinels of dark majik fight for territory. The pair must adapt to the curious cultures and fantastic customs of Gremlins, Faeries, Anurans, and others to make allies, and they must fight off the pets that a long-begone sorcerer left behind: cannibals, scarecrows, minotaurs, and gargoyles of living stone. Written as Sherlock Holmes-like short stories and in the same style as Victorian adventure classics, it's steampunk with a 100% realistic twist -- every gadget and gun did exist or could exist with the period's technology. Story 1: Chadwick Yates and the Cannibal Shrine Thurston Sharp's soldiering life turns surreal when he is suddenly assigned as secretary to the mysterious Ambassador Chadwick Yates, an eccentric explorer and gunslinger on his way to the Gremlin mountains of Tanzia, an uncharted continent home to other sentient races and a foul menagerie of evil monsters known as Servants: the pets brought to life by a terrible sorcerer who once enslaved all races. Sharp must strive to understand Gremlin culture in their civilized caves and follow Yates to face the horrors which dwell in the dark, wild caverns underneath.