Steam Hunt XI: The Beginning

:blows the dust out, sneezes:

Yes, well.  Circumstances have abounded, as per usual.  RL is full of circumstances.  However, it is not full enough to keep me away from this year's Steam Hunt, and so here I am.

For the very first time, I think, I managed to get all of the Hunt items all by my very own self, albeit with a certain amount of crying with frustration and staying in one shop for three nights running, desperately scanning the insides of pot plants and the branches of nearby trees.  Don't ask me where anything is, though, because some twerp (if I may use the technical term) put up a cheat blog (which I'm not linking to) saying where everything was - so, if the Hunt merchants are on the ball, they will have relocated everything by now.  I suppose it might be a valid reason to go out and do the Hunt all over again, but....

Anyway.  Here is the first slab of pictures of the Hunt gifts, according to immemorial tradition.  (Did you know that "time immemorial" by the way, in English law, means "dating back to the reign of King Richard the Lionheart"?  Of course you did.  My readership-at-very-small is all terribly erudite, I know that.)

 We start, of course, at the Steampunk Information Centre in Mieville, where we pick up the invaluable Hunt bracelet which will guide us on our merry way through the rest of the event.

Then we pop on over to Lantian/FLOX at number 2, where we get this Plate of Mer Gear Donuts with Kelp Sprinkles.  Click on one of those tasty treats, and the plate gives you one of your very own to eat.  Steampunk and nutritious!

There are always a few no-shows, real life being what it is; number 3 was one of them.  Number 4, however, was Mountain Rose, where the mini-hunt has now become a fixture.  The first thing to get is this pair of Gazebos,  one Mermaid Open and one Steampunk Dance.

The theme is a sub-aqua one this year, and Mountain Rose is providing buildings and furniture and... stuff... in keeping.  Here is most of a furniture set, for a Living Room.  There is other stuff besides this in the box, but this was enough to make my little Unpacking Isle look quite busy.

Your living room, obviously, has to be in a house, like for example this Atlantis II Mer House.

 And your house has other rooms, such as bedrooms and bathrooms, and they need furniture too.

 Also a Master Bedroom, and here's some furniture for that.  There are Gears, it is Steampunk.

Here's a Landing Pod House to put some more furniture in.  You can't see the big gear at the bottom rotating, but I assure you it does.

 Here's some stuff for the performing arts, including that big thing at the back which is a stage, and a rug and some chairs for the audience, and a couple of abstract sculptury things, comprising a sort of orrery and a thing made of gears (Steampunk!).

 The idea is that Atlantis II was founded by the crew of a crashed alien spaceship, and, really, why not?  Anyway, the spaceship had officers, and they lived in suites aboard it, and those suites had furniture.  Here's some of the First Officer's furniture.  The First Officer slept alone in that sort of pod thing with the transparent lid, it seems, but they got up to all sorts of naughtiness on that blue couch.

Another Landing Pod House.  It looks like the other one, but has a different internal arrangement.  Which you can't see from the outside, because Glorf takes rubbish photographs.  I'm no use at all really.

Alien schoolroom furniture!  All sorts of different images come up on that big screen.  I would tell you what they all are, except I failed GCSE Alien.

 Here's some furniture from the Medical Officer's suite.  The Medical Officer slept in a more conventional four-poster, it seems.  I can't tell you why, because I failed GCSE Alien.

Here's me in a Diver outfit, tastefully enlivened by the pink stilettos I forgot to take off.  As is usual for these Mountain Rose deals, the outfits are provided in a range of sexes and age groups.  Obviously enough, I went for an adult female option here.

Steampunk Riding Snail.  Racing snails came up in conversation with Tali only the other day - sadly, I missed out on those.  This is only a Riding Snail.  Nice enough, though.  Very gastropod.

The Captain of the ship has nice purple upholstery and that rather nifty animated image of Saturn on his table.  And lots of gears.  All very flashy, but you still crashed your spaceship, didn't you, matey?  Eh?

Atlantean Dress Uniform.  As with the diver outfit, this comes in a range of sexes and sizes.  I like that hat.

 Finally - from Mountain Rose - the Atlantean Day Uniform, with a geared-up corset instead of a jacket, and a pith helmet instead of the peaked cap, and that three-function rifle thing which is a fully working (and very unlikely) gun.

 Phew!  Moving on from that selection from Mountain Rose, we come to Brain Circuit at number 5, and the Stranger of the Deep outfit.  The male version lacks the skirt, but still has the mask and the tentacles.  As we all know, I approve of tentacles.

 Number 6 is !Never Ever!, and they give us this Cyber Machine, which... sits on your spine and looks pretty and Steampunk, I guess!

 Number 7 was a no-show: 8 is Steaming Ahead, and they are doing their usual quality design with this decorative mesh Treasure Chest.  I approve.  I am all about the booty, you know.

 9, I'm happy to report, is Epic Toy Factory, and I moved off Unpacking Isle and down to the sea bed so that their Deep Sea Bubble Wreck could get shown to proper advantage.  Looks good, has numerous sit animations that do silly things.  Typical ETF high-class gifty, in fact.

Rag Dollz is number 11 (10 is the third of only four no-shows), and gives us this Steampunk Merfolk set.  Looks good, comes with a mer AO and numerous accessories, some M, some F, some unisex... we would expect nothing but quality from Rag Dollz, of course!

Stop 12, Timeless Textures, boring old shot of boring old box containing not-boring-at-all texture pack.  It may not be visually exciting for you, dear reader, but it sets my antennae tingling.  Do I have antennae at this point?  I've mentioned before that my outfit gets stranger and stranger as I unpack.

Captain Nemo's Table from stop 13, Casa de Bebe.  Captain Nemo evidently manages with quite a small, but very well-formed, table.  Note a certain catlady lurking in the background, there, looking for me to unpack some good stuff.

Underwater Curiosity Ottoman and Porthole from number 14, Hearth & Home.  Pretty neat, very LI efficient.  The ottoman contains several different sits.  Directly after taking that picture, I tried another sit, lay back, and concussed myself on the edge of the porthole.  So it goes.

 Framed Art Three Panels Kraken Sepia, from shop 15, Classic Accessories.  My approval can be taken for granted here, I think.

Stop 16  is XM Designs, and they give us this Underwater Cog Cafe set.  I think it falls midway between Art Nouveae and Art Deco - the simple lines and spindly shapes strike me as deco, but the curves are very nouveau.  Don't take my word for it, I'm no expert.

Stop 17, Les Arts de Saint-Bruno, and a series of illustrated full-colour plates from Jules Verne's The Mysterious Island.  I've pulled three out to show you here, but there are heaps more.

 On to number 18 and this Animated Cog from HOT Couture.  It has a bunch of couples animations in it (clean ones [dammit!]); Tali had slunk off to do something clever at this point, though.

Stop number 19 is Adelle Arts, clothing designers I know well.  I set up this shot of their Diving Suit so that the camera's looking straight into the beam from that headlamp.  Rather effective, isn't it?  There's a male version as well, of course.

The orientation of this gift from number 20, The Rug Shop, surprised me.  I suppose it could be a very tall, narrow rug.  Or I could lay it down flat on the ground.  Whatever.  It's called a Mermaid in Kelp, anyway, and it's pretty nifty.

Here's Inara's Steampunk Cutie from number 21, Inara's Fantasy Couture.  Couldn't find a gent's version.  I'm sure the gentlemen would look fetching in this anyway.   Pretty decent fit, for non-fitted mesh on my non-standard shape.

And here's a Steampunk Undersea Adventuress, next to the box for the Steampunk Undersea Adventurer, from number 22, Hig's.  (I said to Tali, with a name like that, they should sell bosons.)  Anyway.  Nice enough outfit, and that hat with the gears (Steampunk!) is shiny.

That's all for now.  There are more than sixty shops to go, and some of them had mini-hunts or multiple gifts, so I will be at this a few more days.