“THE GUIDE”

It was during the revival of silver production in darkest Peru in the year 1759 that an ageing and misguided explorer (though some say grifter) setup camp at the base of the Andes. Ulysses Alfred Mallory had been at the explorer game most his life and though spending a great deal of other people’s money had little to show for it, for the exception of spreading a great deal of germs to indigenous cultures throughout the world. Little did Ulysses know he would be responsible for unleashing a virus unlike any other the world had ever known.

 Closing in on 50 years of age Ulysses stared up at the grandeur of what the natives called Huascarán. “There.” he thought, staring at the peak. “There is where I’ll find the solution to all my problems.” Ulysses hoped to find a silver seam to help right a lot of wrongs he’d made in his checkered past. And maybe retire a gentleman of notoriety...

Scaling the frigid terrain slowly took a toll on Mallory’s merry band of Spanish mercenaries and local guides. First the provisions ran short, then distrust and infighting as the men grew desperate and starved. Eventually becoming lost the group sunk to it’s basest instincts. Feeling a mutiny afoot, Ulysses fled during a storm along with the only guide he could trust - a young Incan boy named Atoc.

After stumbling frantically for days Atoc spotted a light source through the blinding snow. Following it the eventually came upon Incan ruins. The light seemed to be emanating from a temple at the center of the village. Assuming this was the glow of treasure Ulysses charged forward into the temple ignoring Atoc’s shouts of warning.

What happened in that temple is still not entirely clear. What we do know is that when Ulysses Alfred Mallory returned to the halls of the Explorers Guild in jolly old London he was accompanied by an “automaton” he referred to as Atoc. Resigning his membership in the guild, Ulysses would soon rebrand himself as an “inventor”.

Steam-engines, cotton-gins, the powerloom, the spinning jenny, locomotives, typewriters, telegraphs and more began to spring forth and be patented by various shell companies Mallory had set up. And soon enough the hammering, stamping, chugging, whizzing sound of industry began to fill the air around London and anywhere Mallory and his automaton went. Rails of steel wrapped around the earth in tandem with great stretches of copper wire tying everything together tighter than the Queen’s corset.

“Mallory’s Marvelous Machines” as they came to be known seemed to populate the world faster than a smallpox epidemic rages through the jungle.  How one washed-up adventurer could come up with so many innovations no one knew, but some speculated he didn’t come up with them at all. No, they thought, those ideas are coming from the mysterious little machine that follows him around all the time. And that was exactly what was going on.

**********

MODELS ARE SOLD UNPAINTED!
PAINTED IMAGE IS FOR DEMONSTRATION PURPOSES ONLY!