England: The Hunt For Hot Gold III

In the year of Pat Sajack's Lord 1875, in the month of June, the date being the eighth, the collective minds of those gathered by Her Majesty the Queen had finally decided on a proper plan for the craft that would take us all to the sun, and, to my dismay, it is not the craft that Fez and I designed, though it requires many of the same materials. Whereas our ship would be powered by the directed burning of methane produced by bovine, this new design was some gaudy monstrosity powered by some random chain of chemicals that I held absolutely no faith in, and it lacked any simple elegance that was produced by our original design. Would you, dear posterity, believe that one of our new colleagues insisted that when we had traveled a certain distance from the Earth that the air would actually run out? I am well aware that on mountain tops the air will become thin and difficult to breath in, but we are not going up a mountain, we are traversing the distance between the Earth and the Sun, in which there do not seem to be any mountains of sufficient height to make the air vanish completely. No, I would dismiss these wild ramblings as a sign of lunacy, and while they do not quite agree with my reasoning, every one else seems to agree with my decision in this matter.
There is a chance that the region between the Earth and Sun might be filled with Aether however, as Fez has mentioned just a short month ago, so, working with him and a few others, I have proposed a specially designed helmet to aid in the function of breathing. Naturally, such high minded men as those who will be joining us on this expedition can not simply walk around looking silly, especially not in front of each other, so a special suit has been proposed as well to match my helmet design, which i have included below.

The helmet shall be made of brass with rubber seals, and a smoked glass visor that we might the Sun without getting our eyes burned. Attached to a pump, the mask will pull in Aether through a vent on the left hand side, filter out the oxygen so that you can breath it, and pump the rest of the Aether out through an exhaust on the right hand side. Much like the modern diving suit, the actual pump will be powered by hand in a large contraption, connected to the various helmets by lengthy hoses. All the same, the pumping mechanism will be on sledges so that it can be moved around once we reach the surface of the Sun.

The suit will look similar to the fashionable and practical waistcoat-jacket-gloves combination that can be seen about London, subtly sewn together on the inside to prevent the parasites known to traverse the Aether from entering through the sleeves or pant leggings. To match the brass coloring, the suit will be made with cloth-of-gold designs etched into the stitching, the main coloration being light browns and beige.

England: The Hunt for Hot Gold II

In the year of your mother's Lord 1875, on the 10th of the rather confused month of February, Michael Fez and I were once again strolling along the cobbled streets of merry old London Town. It seemed that even though the Queen Victoria valued us enough to send an invitation to us while in that wretched hell hole on the continent, she did not want to secure us a carriage or other conveyance. Truly, the British matriarch is a woman wiser than I, for I can not see this as anything but an insult. Being royalty, she would never do anything insulting though, so it can't be an insult. Nope. Even though I did step in the droppings of a dog and Fez was mugged three times, I am most certain that this was not an insult in any way. Then again, the last time Fez and I were in London, we did light the throne on fire. I am most certain that she has forgiven us for that though. Yes.
After a quick trip to the surgeon so that Fez could get a few sutures and stop complaining about carrying his intestines around in his hands, we arrived at Buckingham Palace to be escorted into the Queen's private Chamber of Commerce and Science. Not many people know that there is such a chamber in the palace, and that is because the general citizenry of the British Isles simply can not handle the thought of a room devoted to both science and commerce at once. Then again, most of the general citizenry can not handle the thought of Swiss cheese, and they do not seem to know much any way. At any rate, both Fez and I were there, in the presence of Her Majesty and Her greatest scholars and astronomers. We were given a long lecture about just what the sun was, how far away it was, how big it was, and what it was made of, but I shall only write out the finer points here.
The sun is big and the sun is round. It is also bright yellow, and very shiny. Just as the earth is made up of various minerals, so too must the sun be. But, due to the sun's solid color, it is reasonable to assume that the sun is made up of one element, and one element alone. Due to it's coloration, it is also reasonable to assume that that solitary element is pure gold. It was the Queens plan to send an expedition of every one in the room, excluding Her royal self, to the sun so that we might harvest that gold as well take scientific readings.
After She had finished, the chamber was filled with mutterings and the occasional clapping. In the din, I turned to Fez with a somewhat worried look, only to see his was shining with anticipation.
"Fez, you fool," I said quietly, taking him by the shoulder and pulling him close to me. "We can't go to the sun! We've got to get Russia for the Czar's marriage or we'll lose our heads!"

"If we don't go to the sun," Fez countered, turning to look at me. "Then we might well lose our heads here as well, and since we are already here, we might as well enjoy this one. I hate weddings anyway."

Though I found his hat to be silly, my colleague was right. If we denied either one, we might well die, so we might as well take the one in front of us. Therefore, when the Queen left us all to get to work, Fez and I stood up and grabbed the nearest scribe. Following is the list of materials needed to make the vessel that would carry us all to the sun.

Steel (20 tonnes)

Oak (2 tonnes)

Clear Glass (10ftX10ftX2ft)

Copper Piping (400ft)

Large Copper Boilers (5)

Rivets (1000+)

Nails (2500+)

Glue (50gal)

Cow (1)

England: The Hunt for Hot Gold

In the year of somebody's Lord, 1875, on the 4th of February Fez and I were on our way to that wretched cesspit full of reeking cheese-eaters that shall not be named on a matter of principle. That principle being, I am quite sure this journal would burst into holy flames as the Lord would condemn it. Now, as I said, we were on our way to that place that a good friend of mine, though rather he was more in a different social circle than I, perhaps better described as a loose acquaintance, was in need of a special salve only available there in order to treat a rather nasty hemorrhoid. Almost before we had set foot on the filthy, filthy docks of the port, we were assaulted by someone I at first took for a madman. Of course, I first mistook my good friend Fez as one who was touched in the head, and once again, it was he who proved me wrong about my initial perceptions.
"Monocle, my dear man," he spake, placing his hand upon my chest and pressuring me to remove my fist from the stranger's trachea. "Remember when you thought I took ill on our journey to Shangri La? The fever dream I had as a result of drinking your strange concoction of lantern oil and some blue fungus you found under a rock? This is him!"
"Oh," I answered, somewhat put off as I released the fellow, letting him drop, gasping to the dock that stank of wine and cheese and unshaven women. When he had regained his breath, and his wits, the man stood up and dusted himself off before holding a letter out for me to take. When he opened his mouth to speak, I heard nothing but strange noises made in his throat as a wave of the most horrid stench washed my face. With a swift maneuver that Fez assured me would come to be called a 'Round-House Kick,' I sent him into the drink and watched as he dissolved, apparently having been held together by a water-soluble compound, such as filth, as I had expected. Taking out my handkerchief, I reached down and picked up the letter carefully, holding it up for Fez's inspection.
"My word," he said, grabbing a near by urchin and using him to gain some height that he might read the letter's envelope from a position where there was light, a difficult thing to find in such squalor, even if we were still on the docks. "Monocle, my dear man, I do believe that this is a letter from the Queen Victoria of England herself!"
While he got back down from the urchin and threw the now useless wretch into the bay to dissolve with his contemporary, I took the letter carefully and made my way back on to the ship, that I might read it without sullying the Queen's handwriting with the filthy air. Safely back in the cabin, we both read the letter and were shocked to find that the Queen of England had heard of our exploits in a few short years of working together and required our unique insight on the Empire's latest project. It was something that might increase the value of Great Britain untold amounts, something that would transform the British nation in to a super power to be feared and respected across the globe. Queen Victoria planned to send a crack team of miners and her finest scientists on an expedition like no other!
The Queen planned to mine for gold, in the heart of the Sun!

The Chronicle of Fez & Monocle

Johnathan Monocle was one of the first monoclesmiths to set up shop in foothills of the Norwegian mountains, where he made quality monocles for the well to do. On a warm summer's day in mid July of the year of our lord 1872, Monocle's work was interrupted when a somewhat impoverished and ruffled looking man collapsed through the doorway into his forge. The man regaled Monocle with a tale of intrigue, mystery, conspiracy, and the supernatural. At first, Monocle was entirely sure that the man was quite insane, but as a gentleman first and foremost, Monocle allowed the man to spend the night and continue telling him stories that sounded as though they were pure fantasy. To cap it all off, the strange man even claimed he could see the future, in specific detail. As proof, he gave a a personal review of an as yet unpublished work. Monocle allowed him to spend the night before promptly kicking the man out of his home.

In the year of not your lord 1873, on the anniversary of the day that he had been visited by that strange man, Monocle came across a recently published book, and to his shock it was the same book that the man had critiqued! After a week of frantic searching, he found the man at a cheap boarding house in the poorer part of the village. Recognizing Monocle, the man smiled and properly introduced himself as Michael Fez, and told him he forgave Monocle for throwing him out all those months ago.

Intrigued, Monocle took a seat and proceeded to question Fez most rigorously, and was lead to the conclusion that Fez had not been lying that night in his forge, the man really could see into the future. Immediately, Monocle came up with the idea of making a partnership with the young Fez both detectives and critics, quite possibly the first people to ever go into business to do both!

Fez took to this idea like a fish to water, and so The Fez & Monocle Detective & Critic Agency was born! A crate of aspen wood in the attics of Elbert Fizzinwizzle has been found to contain every review and chronicles of every adventure that Fez and Monocle had over the course of their long and illustrious career. These tomes have been obtained at the great cost of the ire of many an occult society and clown college so that they might be posted here, on the internet for your enjoyment.