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‘Why are there wheels on top?’ he said to Garovel.

‘They add much needed stability,’ the reaper said. ‘And... well, you’ll see pretty soon.’

‘Hmm.’ Hector thought about that answer for a bit. ‘Wait a minute... You said you haven’t been down here in three hundred years or something, right?’

‘Yep.’

‘But... you already know about this train technology?’

‘Yep.’

‘So you’re telling me they’ve had trains like this for more than three hundred years?’

‘Yep.’ A beat passed. ‘Okay, well, maybe not JUST like this. This one does look a lot spiffier than I remember. But the whole double-track thing is old tech. In fact, I don’t think the trains down here ever DIDN’T have them. The one-track design was a surface-level thing.’

‘Huh...’

Hector ended up taking over a couple of empty seats near the front of the train, but there wasn’t a whole lot of extra space remaining, and he felt sorry for the Rainlords who were stuck sharing a cabin with his noisy suit. He watched the train doors slide shut and felt the whole room begin rumbling gently.

Soon enough, they were underway. There weren’t many windows to speak of, and the few they did have were quite small and circular, the kind Hector imagined seeing on a boat or plane. At first, he saw a few faint lights streaming by, but then there was only pitch darkness.

Their first destination was going to be a place called Babbadelo, as Hector recalled. Naturally, Garovel hadn’t told him anything else about it--though that might’ve been because Garovel hadn’t been there in so long.

In the meantime, Hector tried to occupy himself with meditation, but a sudden, rather violent shift in the train disturbed him.

‘What was that?’ he asked.

‘Heh,’ was all Garovel said. He’d latched onto Hector’s shoulder while the train was in motion.

Nobody was panicking, Hector noticed, so he supposed the shift wasn’t anything to be too concerned about. But something was definitely different.