Chapter 4 - Salar

The rest of the party hears Firn talking to...what seems to be himself.

A hawk appears near Xadira and moves over to where she sits. It seems to look over her shoulder and read the book as she does.

Bill walks over, seeing Aelar fiddling with a small plastic package. Ah, looks like you found some of the strings. We had some of our show equipment with us when we arrived here. Unfortunately not much of it survived the trip, and that that did doesn't function without working power. These are a choice set of strings.

He looks down at the lute he carries and the back to you. It's been tough trying to learn on something with so many strings. It really doesn't quite make the right sound. Of course a total lack of distortion doesn't help either. If we end up finding my instrument I'll show you how to play it.

Eagin watches Firn stand and start heading out through to the other car. Then he turns to the rest, Is he normally like this? Seems a little...unhinged.

In the Soldier's Car
Firn, you enter back into the chaos of cheers and jeers that is the raucous soldier car. Most of the soldiers are engrossed in their game and don't even know you had entered, left, and re-entered the car. One soldier, on the side of the group closest to you watched you walk in, back out, and then back in. She walks over and slaps you on the back. Still getting your land legs?, she says with a snort of laughter. She grabs a stein nearby and shoves it into your hands. Drink this, it'll help, or at least you won't care you're on a train, she snorts again.

In the Hero Car
As you sit around, each taking up your own tasks and pre-mission rituals the car is actually quite calm. The thrumming engine of the car has been relegated to a sort of droning background noise. It's not altogether pleasant, or unpleasant. As the time ticks by Nix absentmindedly seems to be playing with her cloak when, suddenly, she is no longer there. Where she sat is just an empty cot.

In the Hero Car
Nix suddenly pops back into existence on her cot as though nothing had changed. She was only gone for moments, but she herself is completely unaware of how much time could have passed until she is back. It was as if the place where she was had no use or meaning for time.

Fawkes' eyes scrutinize Nix before he responds. You've got something stuck between your teeth. How embarrassing.

Fawkes digs his claws into Nix's shoulder and occasionally stretches out his wings, smacking her in the face.

As the intrepid duo of Nix and Fawkes open the door to get to the soldier car they are also greeted with the loud sound of the train chugging through the underground tunnel at a fast clip. The sound drowns out anything else and with a few steps they open the solider car door and slip inside. Here they are greeted by the raucous sound of soldiers in their dice games.

At the edge of this group they see Firn standing near a few soldiers saying something about sounds above the car. The soldiers talking to him seem to be giving him a bit of a look and a few strong drinks to try and calm his obvious nerves.

Why don't you just relax and play a round of king's dice, a female soldier says to him, giving him a small laugh, It'll help pass the time.

Xadira, sits in the other car, eyes white as she takes in the scene through the eyes of Fawkes.

As Nix speaks up the female soldier turns and gives you a relieved smile. Oh good. This guys been a bit high strung and ranting since he got in here. You may want to take him back to the other car. He keeps talking about things on the train, she says as she sort of turns Firn to meet Nix and tries to push him to walk back.

Over the noise of the soldiers enthralled in their games and chat you can hear no noises. The soldiers pushing Firn towards you briefly cock their heads upwards but seem mostly to ignore the idea. We are in a tunnel carved through the very earth. We have to be at least 100 feet down below the surface. I think maybe you two should go get some sleep. Being in a dark tunnel like this can really play tricks on the mind if you aren't used to it.

She keeps pushing Firn, towards you Nix.

As Firn drunkenly staggers around between the traincars he looks like he wants to try and jump up to grab the top of the car but his first attend ends as drunkenly as you would imagine and he jumps, but gets nowhere near high enough to reach up onto the car.

From Nix's point of view he tried to jump, but his feet never actually left the ground.

Fawkes gives a cursory look upwards while in-between cars.

Fawkes, still perched on Nix's shoulder, and with the sight and hearing of Xadira, looks up at the top of the train car Firn was trying to get onto.

Firn seems adament about trying to get on the traincar but is making little drunken progress.

Xadira steps outside the train car to the loud thundering in the tunnel and finds a very Blue-green looking Firn seeming to talk to the air above Nix. She seems to be wrestling with him to get him to stop trying to climb up on top of a train car.

At this moment, as you are discussing this in the space between cars, Phina continues in her workshop to tinker, and Utes is back in the team's car you hear a noise. A sort of loud WHUMP sound. This is followed briefly by a cloud of black smoke that suddenly overtakes the tunnel, and then passes as the train speeds along. You all hear this sound, even over the loud clacking and chugging of the train as it continues down the track ceaselessly.

The raucous sounds coming from the soldier's car even go quiet as they all seem to have heard the noise as well. The sounds of the speeding train resumes as before.

What do you all do?

One of the soldiers turns his attention from listening in their car, they all seem to be looking forward to the front of their car, the sound must have come from up in front of even them.

Uh, we don't have much of plans for this thing. Half of us barely understand the mechanisms that move it, says a woman with dark red hair pulled back into a tight braid. We should figure out what that sound was, though, she adds.

You continue to discuss, formulate, and organize a plan when suddenly an ear-splitting sound rocks the tunnel.

KRACKAKOOOOOOW!

You're simultaneously deafened and blinded by both the sound, and the sudden flash of white light. You feel the rumble that reverberates the whole tunnel, and worse, you feel the train beneath your feet lurch unexpectedly. It's a strong jerk up as this speeding train hits something and starts to go upwards instead of forwards. You only have a brief moment before you realize this train is no longer following the tracks it should be, but is rocketing upwards from its underground confines.With only a split second to act you hear screaming, the rending of metal against stone, and your own breath echoing in your ears, as from a far away location.

As the train rockets up and bucks around Aelar and Firn manage to grab hold and brace themselves. They find hold on their train car. As the train continues upwards the soldier car and engine separate from the rest of the train and start to roll sideways.

Xadira hits her pin and a translucent purple shimmer surrounds her as she huddles into a ball. As your train car hits some of the rocks of this slop it bucks upwards and Xadira is launched into the air as nothing is holding her in place.

Utes instinctively braces herself into a solid position inside the train car. Looking back she sees the entrance to the last car, the lab car, and a moment later it is gone. The hero car splits in two with a loud CRACK. The lab car veers off another direction and starts to roll like the soldier car and engine.

In all of the noise and chaos you see the engine to the train. It's entirely engulfed in orange flames and it billows black smoke. As it, and the soldier car, are pulled off the the left the entire train crests this hill it is now climbing rapidly. The entire train, now separated into 3 pieces arcs through the air and you see nothing but white sand in every direction.

As the soldier car and engine arc out and smash back into the ground the engine erupts with one more explosion, destroying most of the structure and blowing apart the entire soldier car. Xadira, still in a ball flies through the sky and soon finds herself falling. She falls and falls. She was launched nearly 40 feet in the air and impacts almost like a metor leaving a small crater. As she hits the ground the purple shimmer around her glows bright, and then seems to shatter as the damage is absorbed into the shield. She finds herself in a crater, but unscathed.

As the portion of the hero car that has Firn, Aelar, and Utes on it hits the sand it starts to roll. Firn and Aelar are jostled loose and flop against the sand as the train car continues to roll further. Utes, inside the car, rolls with it, but is solidly braced and only winds up slightly dizzy from all the spinning.

The other half of the hero car and the lab car are last to crest the hill and the just barely do so, tipping up over the edge and sliding across the sand, it finally comes to rest near Aelar and Firn.

The scene happens in fractions of a second but the whole event seems to have taken forever to finally come to a rest. After all of the chaos, suddenly there is silence. You hear fire crackling near where the engine and soldier car are now completely engulfed in flames, but everything else is suddenly silent. You are all still alive, somehow.

Nix pops into existence and finds herself falling about 3 feet to the ground from the point where she disappeared. Looking up this steep collapsed rock hill she sees a jagged cut path caused by the train as it passed. Bits of twisted and torn metal and wood litter the path up to the brim of this natural ramp. Looking back she can see the empty train tunnel that abruptly ends.

As you approach the lab car it's on its side and is silent. Trying the door it is still locked as well as jammed closed in the collision.

Nix
As you climb up to the door and attempt to wrench it open the door gives some resistance. After a few tugs the door opens suddenly with a clang. The bright sunlight illuminates the inside of the car slightly. Inside is an utter disaster. Everything is everywhere.

As you try to look about you suddenly hear a sound coming from the rear of the car. A sort of whirring noise accompanied by a rhythmic thumping. It grows louder and more regular and suddenly you hear another noise as something big tears its way out through what was before the roof of the train car. It leaves a large hole that spills more sunlight into the interior of the car.

As you look over to see what emerged you see a strange sort of creature. It's a hulking wood and metal construct. It's abdomen is a large orb-shaped section. It has two large metalic arms connected by some sort of strange series of wires and iron brackets. It stands firmly on two large solid iron feet. At the top of the torso you see wrought iron bars that come up around the top to form a small sort of protective cage, and inside this cage you see the familiar shock of pink hair of Phina. She seems to be piloting whatever this thing is with a series of levers.

On the outside of one of the arms of this construct you see the lancer that she had been given by the Daggers. It looks almost like a large pronged sword attached to the forearm of this thing.

Utes
As you scan the scene you see three distinct areas of wreckage. The first is the engine and soldier car, or what is left of them. The two have been almost completely blown to pieces and are engulfed in flames. To a soldier such as yourself it's clear to see that there are probably not going to be survivors from that.

The second is the portion of the hero car that you were inside. Structurally it's intact, except that it's been split in two.

The third is the other portion of the hero car that is still attached to the lab car. That's on its side, but still intact, save for one large hole that is now in the roof of the car, you also see Phina in this strange monstrosity.

Xadira
Fawkes comes swooping down to rest on your shoulder. He managed to take flight through the opening in the tunnel that was created and avoided the wreck.

Looking around you the desert stretches out in all directions to the horizon. With the featureless white sand everywhere it's hard to even determine direction. The only indicator is the tracks that are in the crater below. By this time in the trip they should have been heading Southeast towards the city of Salar, though it's hard to determine just how far away you were.

Firn
As you examine the crater left from whatever caused this explosion you can see the tracks at the bottom of it, and some of the tunnel that the train came from. It looks like the jagged entrance to a cave sitting at the bottom of this crater.

On the other side the tracks continue into a sloped side to the crater that is made up of rocks and boulders of all sizes. It's maybe 60 feet down to the bottom of the crater. It would seem that the train was supposed to continue underground but this massive explosion basically made a sinkhole that created an improvised sort of ramp that the train rocketed up.

You can see where the tracks should be going, but you would have to dig your way into it. You're not exactly sure how much digging that would entail.

Nix
As you stealthily enter the tunnel it's dark and quiet. You hear a small pebble fall here and there in the shifting rocks as you enter, but once inside the small entry you find yourself looking at the familiar dark tunnel with a set of metal tracks running down the middle of it. The entrance to this seems safe.

Aelar joins Nix in the tunnel, seeing the same quiet tunnel scene. Phina climbs in next with her armor nearly getting stuck. She frantically pulls and pushes levers to navigate the hulking armor into the nearly created entrance. The feet of the armor land with solid thumps that can be felt through the ground.

Looking around for Eagin you end up finding him in the back-half of the hero car. He is knocked unconscious, and looks a little battered up, but he is alive and still breathing. After searching a few more minutes you can't seem to find Bill anywhere. You are fairly sure he was in the hero car when the train derailed.

Nix is the first to see the spark of a small fire up ahead in the tunnel. You've all been walking for maybe what feels like a mile now. She scouts ahead leaving the rest slightly behind as she gathers some intel. Approaching the fire she sees it sits behind a large pile of boulders that lie across the tracks. Using this cover to get a little closer she almost doesn't notice the other figure in the dark of a man in robes also crouching behind the boulders. It's Bill.

Neither of you manage to make a sound and he points over the boulders to signal you to look. As you peek over you see a small band of kobolds gathered around a fire. One of them is arguing with another.

...I don't care what happened to Gork! Gork was idiot! He say we just kill heroes. He not remember plan! Plan work!, the one says. He has a large red ram skull symbol painted across his dark scales.

The other kobold he was arguing with seems to relent the point, but still looks upset about whatever point it was trying to make.

At this point two of the kobolds are scrapping with each other. It doesn't seem malicious. More like rowdy behavior.

Enough, the leader says, We need travel back, let him know it's done, stupid heroes is dead. No match for skull clan, the leader says with a toothy grin as he thumps a small clawed fist against his chest.

Just past this group you can see two small carts that sit on the tracks. They have large levers on them that seem like they might propel the carts forward.

The kobold leader, as his crew is starting to pack up, feels a strange tickle in the back of his mind...

What?!, the leader accuses no one in particular. Who said they no understand plan?!, he says again. His crew look at him oddly but strangely enough begin pointing fingers at each other. Whoever said something, they don't want it to have been them.

This is why me leader. You can't even remember such great plan. This is why he appointed me leader. Me know secret entrance into sewers. Me know how to get into stupid hero hideout. Me know where to get on big metal carriage. They not even notice us. They never notice us. And we use that to advantage, he says, puffing out his chest as he compliments himself.

Me would have been one to blow up carriage if me weren't so valuable to plan. Stupid heroes blow up our black powder at the keep. They not know we have more. They so stupid. Drago was brave soldier, he know how to explode train with powder. Him give life for plan. What any of you done for plan!, he shouts at his crew. They all cower a little at his raised voice.

Nothing. You sit here safe and keep leader company. You lucky I here to protect you. We go now, back to Salar to let him know it done., he adds, hitting one of the underlings over the back of the head. Move this stuff out, now!

He and his underlings go back to work packing up the stuff they have with them onto these two little carts.

The leader feels a psychic pulse from behind and feels his body urge itself to lock up in paralysis, but he keeps control of himself and calls to the others, There's some left, get them, GET THEM!

The sudden eruption of force from where the kobolds are crushes their small bodies against the side-walls of the cavern. Just like that 7 of them lay dead, only the leader is left crawling along the ground, his body ravaged by the spell. He is slowly crawling towards the metal carts in a very pitiful way. He seems in some sort of shock and oblivious to your approach.

There is a slight rumble as the aftershock of the spell reverberates through the rocks and small pebbles and stones loosed from the top of the tunnel fall lightly on the ground.

As the leader tries to slowly crawl away his form is encased from his feet up in a layer of ice. His last breath visibly escapes as a whisp of frost and he is frozen completely solidly.

There are no more kobolds left.