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Gravity had shifted, Hector realized. The train was going almost straight up, it felt like. And perhaps the only reason he hadn’t begun sliding out of his seat was because of the arm rest supporting his weight. He grabbed onto it with his free hand and spread his feet apart unconsciously.

‘This doesn’t feel very safe...

‘Well, you’re supposed to have a seat belt on,’ said Garovel.

‘You tell me this now?’

‘I’m pretty sure the seat belts won’t fit around your suit.’

‘You could’ve warned me, at least. What if I fell out?’

‘Was kinda hopin’ you would.’

‘What if I landed on someone?’

‘Eh, Dimas is right over there. I’m sure he would’ve stopped you. Or you would’ve stopped yourself. You’ve got your iron again, remember? You could’ve whipped something up.’

Hector would’ve expressed his annoyance, but the cabin shifted another time and took his mind off it. Gravity leveled out, and he supposed they were moving horizontally again. He decided to maintain his grip on the arm rest anyway.

From there, the journey began to feel rather tedious. It would take a few hours to reach Babbadelo, apparently, and Hector couldn’t sleep or meditate for fear of falling out of his seat.

That left only one thing for him to do, really.

Pester Garovel with all the things that he’d been meaning to ask for a while now.

‘Hey, Garovel, I have a question.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Have you ever gone to the moon?’

The reaper laughed. ‘I think I see where this is going. But no, I have never gone to the moon.’

‘Why not? You can fly wherever you want, right?’

‘As it so happens, no, I can’t. Reapers can’t leave the planet’s atmosphere.’

‘Hmm. So you’ve tried, then?’

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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.

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They formed a relay line, of sorts. Hector remained stationary so as not to exhaust himself by relying on his undead vigor any more than he already had. Instead, he simply handed his freshly made shields off to the nearest Rainlord, who then took a running start and chucked it down the line with full strength.

It certainly sped things along. He was able to pump out several shields per minute. But apparently, his ability’s maximum range had grown since he’d last tested it. The Rainlords were telling him it was around two hundred meters now.

Thinking about it now, he wondered if an increase in maximum range could even be considered a good thing. He had a hard time imagining a practical scenario in which materializing something that far away from himself would be useful.

But maybe that was his own fault. Maybe he just wasn’t thinking hard enough. Materialization was the power of creation, after all. It only made sense that using it to its fullest potential would require great creativity.

At length, Hector knew that his shield-making marathon had reached its end when a train arrived. Or at least, it seemed like a train. It didn’t quite sound like any train he’d ever heard of. There was no loud hissing of steam or puffing of smoke or screeching of metal against metal. Of course, his suit was interfering with the noise, but Hector was sure that the sound he heard was more of a rumbling growl.

And in the low light, Hector hadn’t previously noticed the rail lines, but they weren’t just lain on the ground. They were also suspended in the air on slender pillars, allowing the wheels on the train’s rooftop to connect.

Which earned a double-take from Hector as everyone was boarding.