by DoctorHepa
A dwarf sat at the bar, leaning into a drink. I had the immediate impression he’d been parked there for some time. He wore a wrinkled uniform, similar to the uniforms the janitor ghouls wore.
Vernon. Yellow Line Train Conductor. Dwarf. Level 32.
“Employees only,” Vernon said, not bothering to look up from his drink. “Passengers aren’t allowed in here. If you want to get to the other cars you gotta get out and go around at the next stop.”
“That doesn’t seem very efficient,” Donut said.
“Conductor?” I said. I thumbed over my shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be in that other train car?”
“That’s the engineer,” Vernon said, looking up. “I don’t go in there, and he don’t come in here. Look, folks, I can’t let you through. The monsters follow the rules and don’t come in here. If they can do it, so can you.”
“So what do you do, then?” Donut asked, ignoring his demands for us to leave.
The dwarf took a long pull of his drink. “I take care of the train, and I am in charge of all the employees. That’s what I’m supposed to do. But the engineer doesn’t listen to me, the janitors try to eat me, and the porters are in their own little world. So what I do, miss talking cat, is I sit here and drink until we reach the end of the line. Then I do it again.”
I took a step deeper into the room. “So this train does circle around,” I said.
“Porters?” Donut asked. “On a subway car?”
Vernon blinked and looked at Donut again. I recognized that look. And here it comes.
“Your majesty,” the train conductor said, stumbling to his feet. His drink went flying. He saluted her. “My apologies. I didn’t realize we had royalty onboard.”
“It’s quite all right,” Donut said, immediately falling into her royal persona. “I know your job must be difficult dealing with all this filthy riffraff.”
“Oh it is, your majesty. It really is difficult. So, uh, is there something I can do for you?”
We were interrupted by two red dots entering the car from train six. It was a pair of Jikininki janitors, both of them holding a broom and dustbin. One made a moaning noise through his chattering teeth as they shuffled forward. Their mouths never stopped moving, like pistons. I could hear them clicking together, even over the rumble of the train. Click, click, click, click. I shuddered.
“Oh crap,” Katia said, stepping in front of me. I held her back.
I remembered the description, and it said they’d leave you alone if you left them alone.
“Get out of the way,” I said. “Let them through.” We pressed up against the wall as the monsters passed. Mongo shrieked in anger, but Donut hissed at the dinosaur to be good. The two ghouls didn’t even look at us as they proceeded up the train.
“There must be a mess in one of the forward cars,” Vernon said. “I should see to that.”
“Actually, Vernon,” Donut said. “We have a few questions about the train. I hope you can answer them for us.”
“Of course, your majesty,” he said. “How may I help?”
I spoke instead of Donut. “You didn’t answer my question. So this train circles around? Where does it go after stop 435? Does it turn into a different line?”
“Everyone has to get off at stop 435,” he said. “It’s the end of the line.”
“I know that,” I said. “But what happens after that?”
He suddenly looked extremely uncomfortable. “I can’t say.”
“You can’t say? Or you won’t?”
“Look, you have to get off at 435. And you really should get off at 433. There’s a big transit hub there. There’s nothing after that. Stop 434 is out of service, and 435 is the end of the line.”
“Vernon,” Donut said. “Why are you avoiding Carl’s question?”
He looked as if he might bolt. But then he stood and walked around the bar and produced what looked like a jug of moonshine. I quickly examined the bottle, and it was regular moonshine, not the more expensive Rev-up Moonshine. Vernon took a swig directly from the bottle and sighed. “I’m sorry your majesty. I only know the rumors. The truth is, I don’t actually remember. We pull into station 435, and then everything gets fuzzy. And suddenly I’m standing on the platform of station 10, which is really just the yard. And I climb onto the train, and it all starts over again. I don’t even know how much time has passed.”
“Huh,” I said. “That’s weird.”
“It is,” he said. “Sometimes I talk to the others at the yard, but nobody knows. It’s the same with everyone. It’s always been this way.”
I remembered that map of the Nightmare Express line. It had a stop number 436. “You said you’ve heard rumors. What are they?”
“There’s a few,” he said. “Some of the guys, they say we’re in a time loop. I think they might be right, but only partially.”
“What do you mean?”
He showed us his forearm, which had a long scar running down it. “I got this a while back. A Brain Amoeba from stop 354. Chupacabre Station. I normally don’t go out there if they’re in the cabin, but I missed one, and it got me good. I was bleeding something fierce. If we were in a time loop, then I’d heal right back up when we jumped back to the yard. But I didn’t heal. If I’m hungry at the end of the line, I’m still hungry when we start over. Plus the passengers aren’t always the same. I can tell time is moving right. Sort of.” He tapped the bottle of moonshine. “But here’s the weird thing. The train is in a loop. I could pour this bottle of shine on the floor, and it’ll return to its spot on the shelf back there the next time around.”
“So you’re blacking out and getting transported to the station, and the train is resetting each time? What about the rest of the crew? The zombie guys and the engineer and whoever else?”
“It’s just me and the porters standing on the station when I come to. The ghouls are different each time. They get on at station 12.”
Station 12 was one of the stations that held staircases. “And the engineer?”
He shrugged. “It’s the same guy. He might be getting off the same time as me, but I’m not sure. He’s always already on the train by the time I come to. But sometimes it’s a different guy, so I know he ain’t looping either.”
“That really is bizarre,” Katia said. “Is the engineer a dwarf like you?”
“He ain’t no dwarf,” Vernon said. “They got all types running the trains. I’ve never actually seen the engineer, but based on his voice I think he’s human. Every new run I turn off the speakers in this cabin so I don’t gotta hear his voice. Humans got voices like a spike in my brain.”
“Don’t I know it,” Donut said.
“There’s more, too. About the train I mean.” Vernon reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a thick bundle of papers. He dropped the papers on the bar. I stepped closer. The top sheet was a crude drawing of a female dwarf.
“It’s my wife,” he said. “I had this made before I took this job. I put the drawing on my bedside in my cabin. One day, I stuck it in my pocket.” He gestured at the pile. “Eventually, this happened.”
The next paper was the same drawing. They were all the same drawing. Dozens of them.
“I can only hold so many. But each time, I stick the drawing in my jacket, and when we start over, I still have the drawing, but the original is still in my cabin. It only works with stuff that was on the train on my first day. Including this.” He pulled a sack from his other pocket and poured several hundred gold coins onto the counter. “I had ten gold when I started. I had the coins on my nightstand.”
“Why don’t you leave?” I asked. “Go home the next time you end up at station 10?”
He shrugged. “I ain’t trapped. Some of the guys at the yard do leave and go home, only to come back a few days later. If you tell the boss man you’re feeling sick, he’ll give you a day off. But when you come back, you better not bring anything you don’t want to lose unless you keep it on your person. The train still loops back to t
hat first day. I’m sticking it out until I can’t hold anymore gold because I know the moment one of those other bastards finds out about my ten gold coins, they’ll try to weasel their way onto this train. No way I’m letting some greasy dwarf steal my magic gold supply while giving him such fine stroke material.” He gestured at the picture of his wife. “Each trip I get paid the equivalent of ten trips because of the money loop. I’ll eventually go home to my wife.” He started gathering his gold coins back up. “One day.”
“Do you have a more extensive map?” I asked. “Like a map of the whole train system?”
He chuckled. “A map of the entire Tangle? I don’t think there is such a thing. I don’t even have a map of the yellow line.”
I felt the train slow and heard a muffled announcement. We were stopping at station #85.
Vernon looked up. “The monsters are getting off. The next span isn’t so bad. We got Snakeheads at 86 and 87. They look the same, but they fight each other. Station 88 is Mothman Station, and a few of the Skinned Mollies get on. They’re pretty scary to look at, but they’re slow. Next one, 89, is a transit station. Yellow line and Indigo line.”
“Indigo?” Katia said, perking up. “That’s where the daughters are.” But before I could come up with an excuse to stay away her face soured. “Nevermind, they’re on the Pink Striped line now.”
“I don’t know that one ,” Vernon said. “There’s a lot of colors.”
“How many?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Some say thousands. I don’t know about that. There’s only so many colors.”
“Do the monsters always get off every five stops?” I asked.
“Yes. I don’t know why. They’re usually pretty excited about it too. Every five stops. They’re one-way stations. You can only get off, not on. Kind of like the transit stations, but opposite. I don’t know if you guys would be able to get on at five station. Probably, seeing how the barrier doesn’t work on you at the transit stations.”
This guy was an invaluable source of information. I knew we’d never get this much out of him if we didn’t have Donut and her outrageous charm.
“Do the monsters ever miss their stop or stay on?”
He nodded. “I’ve seen it happen a few times. If one of the beasties misses his five station, he’ll usually get off the next stop if he can. They’re always in a big panic when that happens. Once a Goateo from station 212 tried to loop around. He stayed on all the way to the end of the line. It was the only time I’ve ever seen something remain on the train.”
“So this mob managed to stay on the train?” I asked. “He was still there when you got back on?”
“Sort of,” Vernon said. “His skeleton was still on the train. His skin and blood and hair wasn’t. Whatever happened after station 435 ended up killing him. It killed him a lot.”
“How do you communicate with the engineer?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t. I got a horn in my quarters, but it don’t work. He never responds.”
“Do you ever just go in there to talk to him?”
“Nope. It’s locked tighter than an elf’s bunghole. You need an engineer’s key to get in.”
“Does he ever come out?”
“I’ve never seen it. I’ve never even seen the interior of the engine train.”
“How can we get him to come out?” Katia asked.
“I’ve only heard of an engineer coming out of his train once,” Vernon said. “And that was under some pretty extreme circumstances.”
“What was that?” I asked.
“Derailment.”
* * *
We ended up talking to Vernon for another hour while the train rocketed down the track. We asked about the 10th car, which was the porter car, but all he said was, “Those guys are crazy.” We also asked about the non-colored trains, which he didn’t know much about. Though he did say something interesting. While each colored line had hundreds of trains on a track at any given moment, he believed there was only one of the larger trains per line. He didn’t know much about the tracks and the system other than that. He knew there was a master controller hub, but it was only for each line, not the whole tangle. Trains did not cross tracks with other trains. The tracks worked like highways with the tunnels going above and below one another. I asked if there was a safe way to traverse the tracks, like a maintenance tunnel or walkway, and he just laughed.
After every five stops, the train would be completely empty of monsters until the next stop. Donut, Mongo, and I decided to go check out the porter room after we hit station number 115. There’d been a lot of transit stations recently, but there weren’t many for the next long stretch. There wouldn’t be another until we hit station number 127, which gave us time to go exploring. According to Vernon, the monsters would break into both cars 15 and 10 if they knew we were there, but he insisted they’d never attack his car number five. But when he said it, I could tell he wasn’t certain.
The time between stations varied greatly. Sometimes the stations would come one after another, coming every minute or two. And then there’d be a stretch of twenty minutes. It turned out the entire trip from stations 11 to 435 took three whole days, which was alarming. My initial instinct was that we needed to stay as close to the stairwells as possible, but I was starting to suspect we’d need to get ourselves to the end of the line to figure this out. We only had nine days.
The good thing was if there truly was only one Nightmare Express line train, that meant it managed to make its large figure eight pattern in only an hour and a half. That meant we’d be able to end up back where we started fairly quickly if we decided it was necessary.
We left Katia with the conductor. He was relaying to her everything he knew about each station, starting with station 11 and going all the way up to 435. He knew the monsters at each platform. He knew which ones were transit stations, but more importantly, he knew what specific colors and other lines connected at each transfer station. Katia was in turn giving this info to Mordecai, who grumbled and complained about being our secretary. But he did it.
We had 10 minutes to go check out the porter car. Stop 116 contained a monster Vernon called Cornets. They used an aural attack.
“What we really need to do is find a neighborhood boss and kill it,” Donut said as we peered into the empty car number six. We jogged down toward the next train. “They’re supposed to have maps. I bet the bigger the boss, the bigger the map.”
She was right. As soon as we were done exploring the train, we’d get off at one of the non-transit hubs and try to find a boss. And if not there, we’d go to one of these mysterious five stations and explore.
“Hey,” I said as we moved down the train. “Has Katia said anything to you about Hekla?”
“What do you mean?” Donut asked. “I did ask Katia to tell Hekla some stuff for me. Hekla does this awesome ninja kick thing before she pops you in the face with her crossbow.” From my shoulder, Donut feigned a karate kick and made a little “Wah-chaw!” noise. “I wanted to know if she had a name for the move because it was so awesome. Katia asked her, and Hekla said it was now named the ‘Donut Kick.’ Isn’t that great?”
“Just be careful, okay?” I said. “It’s good to share information about the trains, but don’t be giving other crawlers too much info about ourselves. Especially where we are.”
“Why not?”
I hesitated. I didn’t want to tell her the true reason for my concern. “We have bounties on our heads now, Donut. We need to be careful. Even with Hekla.”
Donut looked as if she might object, but she didn’t say anything else.
The note over the tenth car read Porters Only. Knock for Service. I tried the sliding door, but it was locked. It wasn’t magically locked like the engine car. It felt flimsy, and I knew I could force it if I had to.
“Should I break in or knock?” I said.
“Why be rude? Knock,” Donut said.
I knocked, and the top half of the door slid open
a half second later, startling me so much I almost fell backward. The enormous face of an NPC gleamed back at me.
You’ve discovered the Yellow Line Reward Room!
You may only collect one prize per crawler, per train line.
Donut gasped in pleasure. The last reward room we’d found resulted in us getting Mongo.
The large, moon-faced creature smiled back at the cat on my shoulder. He reminded me of Lurch from the Addam’s Family, but with a wider, pale face and hair that looked like it was made of dying moss. He wore the now-familiar uniform suit with a hat that read “Porter.”
Pierre. Grapple. Yellow Line Porter. Level 25.
This is a non-combatant NPC.
A Grapple is your everyday quarter giant. Centuries ago when the High Elves discovered how subservient hill giants were, they immediately moved to capture and enslave their entire race. The problem with hill giants is that they’re pretty darn big, and they lack the fine motor skills to properly set out a dinner service. So a breeding system was implemented, crossing the hill giants with the almost-as-compliant Vegetal Ogrids. Their offspring were then culled of all but the most servile. These half giant mongrels were then further bred down with large humans, creating a slave race known as the Grapple. Grapple servants are common across the universe, but they do require close supervision. If you leave them alone for too long, they tend to get … squirrelly.
“How may I help you?” Pierre the Porter asked. He spoke slowly with a gravelly voice.
“Where’s our prize?” Donut demanded before I could think of something to say.
This was not what I was expecting. Over Pierre’s shoulder, I could see a room full of shelves. On each shelf was racks and racks of suitcases. At the far end of the car stood a second Grapple porter, who leaned up against the door to train number 11.
We only had about five more minutes before we’d hit the next stop.