From Ismail al-Jazari, to Leonardo Da Vinci, to John Joseph Merlin, and to Jaquet Droz, Sofia was greatly inspired with her love of automatons.

Young Sofia was poor, and lived in Port city of KarnaXia. It was a future time of social injustices and poverty. Advances in technology were not reflected in society. Energy produced from electricity, water and other natural sources was only affordable for the rich. It was illegal to create energy from natural sources due to patents. Who had refused to share with those who had not, and those in power only served the interests of the rich and powerful. It was a truly despotic future time.

Sofia had a humble heart and a sharp mind. She loved to forage for scraps of technology and parts to build her automatons.

She also loved to share and give away her creations, such as the automata cat she gave to her lonely widower neighbour.

Sofia had a grand plan to save the life of her friend who had a failing heart. This wasn’t something she could just build from scraps, as the materials needed to be expensive surgical quality.

That year Sofia decides to enter the University of KarnaXia scholarship competition to win a place to study medical mechanical engineering. This was the leading university across many regions and the competition was fierce. Sofia lived in one of the poorest regions and KarnaXia University was in the most affluent of region.

Acceptance would enable Sofia to save the life her best friend by inventing an affordable mechanic heart for the poor. A heart powered by perpetual energy.

Sofia determined to succeed starts her journey to a region where she is totally stranger to.

It was some time in 1854, during the Crimean war in Russia near the Black Sea, that a young English lad by the name William Radek, migrated to Istanbul the Capital of the Ottoman Empire.

William’s only immediate family, his father, was a British Empire soldier, a Lieutenant in the Army. The British Empire and the Ottoman Empire were allies with other nations, at war with the Russian Empire.

About a year later, William had not heard from his father for some time and began to check Crimean war death notices. He did this daily with a heavy heart. His father was last known to have been in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol.

The British Empire issues a notice through the army for William to be sent back to an orphanage in England. William determined to find about his father’s situation runs away.

A few months later William works and sweeps hair in a barber where he sleeps at night.

One day as William was working at the shop he was called by a group of kids to rush to a shop in the Bazaar where a large crowd gathered near the front.

A story teller was performing one version of the mythical story of Shahmaran, about a creature half woman and half snake who lived beneath Istanbul, in one of the many labyrinth like caves and passages.

The storyteller told of Shahmaran granting a wish of eternal knowledge for those who find her and correctly answer her riddle. Those who get the riddle wrong would die.

The story teller claims to possess a map that shows the location of Shahmaran and the map is for sale who is courageous enough to take the journey.

William was captivated by the story and thought if he could somehow find her, that she could help him find his father. 

William decides to trade a souvenir from his father, a dagger with precious stones, for a map.