Hours later after some tasty food, a restroom break, loading the vehicles into the back car and Livian somewhat regaining her composure, the group prepared to board their train. Iggy had headed off on her own to the church to pray before they left, saying that she needed it for peace of mind.

Synthia had grown nervous about what to do with the Mioja upon boarding, but Christoph had shown the conductor and attendants his official guild broach to vouch for her and they'd asked no further questions. Evarius and Livian had managed to bring along their weapons by handing them some money as unofficial payment. Synthia grew puzzled over this.

"If you can just bribe them, can't you haggle to pay for like, half of what the vehicles cost to bring with us?"

"It doesn't work that way Synthia," Evarius said. "It's all money going into their pockets, we've got no leverage over that. Besides, this isn't so much 'bribery' as it is an unofficial secondary income for these employees. Mercenaries have to move from place to place somehow, and they can make enough money to spare the difference. These types of jobs only pay so much as a salary."

"I see." Synthia looked around the platform, watching the different people waiting with them. She overheard a conversation between a male adventurer and the ticket booth employee.

"Your status card, please..."

"Oh, sure, sure. No updates since last time, I still specialize in water."

Synthia asked Christoph what a status card was.

"Oh, that? It's a magic item registered magic users or adventurers use when travelling. Just a way of identifying who they are and what they can do, keep everything in order."

"But you didn't need to do that."

Christoph smirked slyly, winking. "Because I'm in the second highest rank of adventurers there are."

"Whoooooa!" Synthia's dark eyes sparkled with admiration. Christoph chuckled in self-satisfaction as Livian groaned.

"Oi, enough with the bragging! Let's just get on this thing! If your white-haired friend doesn't come with us in time, we're leaving without her."

"Her name's Iggy," Synthia said. "Although she is taking a while. I wonder what type of prayer she's making?"

"With how long she's taking, one for the arrival of the Undying."

"Livian, that's enough." Evarius said. As if on cue, Iggy came sprinting toward them just then. Christoph handed her a ticket, clapping her on the back.

"About time. C'mon, time to get aboard."

Entering the car at the end right in front of the one holding their vehicles, they took their seats. Synthia kicked her legs up and down with all the room. "Now this is travelling in style!"

She had, not so wisely, decided to sit across from Livian. A prominent vein began bulging in her forehead with how close they were. Evarius was next to his partner, watching for any potential outbursts. Christoph and Iggy were sitting in the booth beside them.

A man in a green cloak bumped into Christoph's shoulder as he walked past, giving a short apology as he walked to his seat. Christoph rubbed his shoulder reproachfully, shaking his head. Once every passenger had boarded, they were off.

Once their tickets had been punched, Synthia stretched. "Now that we're actually getting somewhere, it feels like I can kick back and relax for a bit. You guys ever been to this place Verletzt?"

"We have, but it's been a while," Evarius said. "Got some old friends I'd like to meet up with, see if they can fine-tune our girl. The truck, I mean. Maybe give her a new coat of paint."

"I just need a drink or two and I'll be good," Livian said. Synthia smirked.

"Gonna find another magazine to peruse?"

Livian bared her teeth in what could barely be called a smile. "Remind me again who has the guns?"

"Enough. Synthia, I can gather you're the type to keep poking and prodding, but in Livian's case you're just provoking the bear."

Synthia held her hands up in surrender. Livian, somewhat mollified, leaned back in her chair to rest her eyes.

Their commute proceeded like so, with Synthia having to pull out one of her books again and Iggy and Christoph chatting. Evarius was content with watching the evening landscape roll by out the window. Livian had begun lightly snoring.

The sound of a baby crying ended up bringing Synthia out from her pleasurable reading experience. Everybody in the car awkwardly tried to ignore the child as it's mother tried to soothe it back to sleep.

Growing uncomfortable, Synthia excused herself. "I just need some fresh air." It was now pitch dark outside. Passengers were getting ready to spend a quiet night travelling to Verletzt.

Synthia noticed the man in the green robe was gone. She reasoned she must not have seen him walk out for the same reasons she was.

Sliding open the door to the outside, Synthia stretched out her muscles. The sound of crying children reminded her too much of the cries of hunger she'd heard throughout her life. Both in Asphodel and where she'd been before then. She leaned on the railing, contemplating the tracks rolling past as she tried to clear her thoughts.

Except she realized there were no tracks.

Blinking, Synthia wondered if her eyes were playing tricks on her. Still no tracks. In fact, there didn't appear to be a ground beneath her either. There was no moonlight either, which should've been waxing. The only light to be found was from the car she had just exited.

Looking around, her entire surroundings were black. No noise, no rolling countryside, no anything. The train didn't appear to be moving either, as there was no feeling of forward momentum or wind in her face. It was like the train had come to a total standstill inside an endless void of nothingness.

A cold hand of dread began coiling its way around Synthia's chest. Trying to keep control of her breathing, she rolled open the train door again. Peeking inside, the surroundings didn't seem to have changed whatsoever. Her companions were still sitting in their chair, and she could hear the baby crying. The scenery outside remained the same. It was rattling along like it was still moving.

Stepping inside, Synthia tapped Evarius on the shoulder.

"Look girl, I don't want..." Evarius trailed off as he saw Synthia's serious expression. She pointed her thumb at the door. Christoph made to follow after them, but Synthia dismissed him with a wave of her hand, not wanting him to strain himself too much.

Once Evarius stepped outside on the end of the platform, his expression grew as dark as their surroundings. "Oh."

"You just had to keep that newspaper for Iggy to find. You jinxed us."

"You're pinning this on me?" Evarius scratched behind his ear. "When I said we could deal with the guy doing this, I didn't think we'd actually deal with him."

"You don't say?" Groaning, Synthia's head pressed against the railing. "This is bad."

"It might look worse than it is."

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Gesturing to their surroundings, or lack thereof, Synthia shouted, "There is nothing outside of the train! Would you say that's anything less than awful?"

Evarius looked at the carriage in front of them. "We got onto the second to last carriage. The one ahead of us is third to last. So assuming this guy moved from car to car, he could have been arranging to lay his trap from even before we boarded."

Synthia remembered the missing man in the cloak. "I bet it's that guy. You know, the one who bumped into Christoph! He's not back there, so maybe—"

"But only maybe," Evarius pointed out. "We can't say for sure, but I do agree it's wise to pursue him."

"So? What exactly are we going to do here?"

Evarius contemplated for a few seconds. "Stay here," he ordered. He drew his sword, opening the next train door. He nodded at Synthia before heading through, closing it behind him.

Synthia stood still for a few minutes, tapping her finger. Should she obey Evarius, or follow after him? He might need help.

Coming to a decision after contemplating it, she opened the door and went in after him. She was greeted by a pungent smell of body odor.

"Apeiros," she muttered, walking through. She saw the passengers inside looking frazzled and dazed, blankly staring into nothing. Among them was Evarius. He grew frantic upon seeing her. "Synthia, don't close the door!"

The door in question began sliding closed, but Synthia placed the bound Mioja in it's path before it could. Looking back at Evarius, she took in the surroundings.

The place seemed to have been turned upside down, with several seats torn and stuffing spilled out, broken windows, and a draped off corner she wasn't sure she wanted to look behind. Like the previous car, the train rattled along on it's merry way and the environment outside looked normal.

Upon closer inspection of the view out the windows, however, Synthia could see it was somewhat hazy. As if the rolling hills and plains were more of a wispy illusion than anything else.

"What the hell...? Evarius, is that really you."

Stumbling up and short of breath, Evarius nodded. "I've been in here for about three hours since I closed that door. I couldn't open it, none of us could. This power is very dangerous."

Looking from passenger to passenger, she saw they were beginning to rise up and look at her in shock.

"A girl?"

"More pointy ears..."

"Who cares, the door's open, we need to get out of here!"

Holding her hand up, Synthia looked at all their faces. "Seriously. What is happening?"

"This train is being attacked by a Time magic user," Evarius explained. "It seems they're able to create separate pockets of time and reality. Or, at least, that's my guess. I've had a lot of time to think over it the past few hours, and I think what we're experiencing right now is a dilation in how we perceive time to be flowing. Inside this pocket of reality surrounding the train... No, it would be more accurate to say there are successive pockets here wrapped up in a larger one. The user is able to stack different flows of time on top of one another. The further up you go, the faster time goes."

Trying to wrap her head around this with the stares of the passengers bearing down on her, all of whom looked incredibly impatient, Synthia could only stand confused. Evarius tried to condense the explanation.

"With each train car, time flows far faster than the one before it. How long were you out there?"

Synthia shrugged. "Three minutes at most."

"Good, good. That's easy to calculate. That means a minute in the train car before equals an hour in the one after it. And it keeps multiplying from there." Evarius nodded as he worked out the basics of this strange ability they were facing. "It seems the door behind you can't be opened once you advance, effectively trapping you in your designated flow of time. Probably a failsafe he worked in. Thank God we ended up near the end of the train. We would've been in much worse shape otherwise."

Jerking her head to the window, Synthia asked, "Why didn't you try to escape through there? Dangerous, but it's gotta be better than being trapped in here."

"We tried." Evarius picked up a piece of wood that had been chipped off one of the booths. Tossing it at a broken window, it simply bounced off like it hit an invisible barrier.

"Nobody escapes from here. Not unless you do it the way this bastard wants you to, and that's by moving forward."

"You didn't try to move ahead?"

"I did, but when I looked inside the window of the next car... I couldn't see anything. Pitch dark, like outside. Thought it would be best to regroup before advancing."

"Ah, who cares about that, just let us out!" A man stomped up to Synthia, towering over her. She merely blinked up at him.

"Uh, I've been calming them down with promises that you'd come in after me and get us out," Evarius said. "They grew a little angry when I let the door close."

"But going in the previous car won't let us escape and could make the people in there panic," Synthia pointed out. "I want to rescue you guys, but I wonder if everybody will be safer in separate cars."

Looking at the antsy passengers, Evarius leaned in to whisper to Synthia. "We don't have much choice. Let them through."

Synthia acquiesced, throwing the door open and letting the passengers mill through to the previous ones. Murmurs of surprise and more screaming from the baby accompanied their entrance. Evarius sighed as he followed them, stretching.

"Some of the longest three hours of my life. C'mon, let's figure out a game plan."

Inside the previous car, everybody was sitting in their booths. The passengers who'd been trapped were sticking to the back end of the car while the rest were in the front end, eager to get away from their smell. The attendants had given them a few snacks to stave off their starvation, but it did little to soothe their irritation.

"We're dealing with a real headache this time," Livian said as she huddled with the group. They had explained that they were likely under attack by a Time user of some sort. For now, everybody remained nervous but somewhat calm. Remembering the behaviour of the trapped passengers, Synthia couldn't help but grow concerned over how long that would last.

"So time stacks and gets longer the further up the train you go," Iggy recapped. "Does that mean the people in the upper cars have been living there for years?"

"Likely," Evarius said. "We're about two hours into our journey. At least, from what we can perceive. In the train car ahead, that would mean those poor bastards have been stuck for about five days."

"Apeiros," Christoph muttered. Evarius laced his fingers and held them to his chin.

"Let's say we're in train car five. Six is the one behind us and likely unaffected since it's just the freight car. Four is the one those guys who were trapped were let out of. They were trapped for five days. But what's even worse is in car three, which would be ten months. After that, you get to car two which would be forty-nine years total. And finally, you get to the one up at the front."

"That's three millennia," Christoph muttered. "How the hell could anyone go up against that?"

"What the victims testified in the paper was true then," Iggy said. "They really were stuck in these cars for an ungodly amount of time. But those guys are starving, how could anyone survive that?"

"Remember, this is just a change in how we're perceiving time," Evarius said. "Our bodies themselves our fine, it takes powerful magic to affect them on that level. It's our brains which are reacting to the change. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say he's placed us in an elaborate illusion, creating phantoms of hunger or bad smell. That's why the car up ahead became such a pigsty."

Iggy leaned in. "But how can you pull this off? Shouldn't the mana required to create something like this be insane?"

"That's the trick," Evarius said. "Time isn't one constant, flowing river. Different parts of time push up against one another, especially as you grow more intimate with Time magic. It's no surprise you don't know with this country's education system. But I digress."

Iggy chuckled. "My education might have been a little different than what you're imagining. But I digress."

Thrown off a little, Evarius tried to think of where he left off as the others suppressed snorts. Even Livian had to clamp her hand over her mouth to stop a snort from escaping.

Eyes alight with picking up his train of thought, Evarius continued with his explanation. "When it comes to Time magic, you can mix and match the three different parts of reality it affects and use it to change the whole fabric if you're good enough. You can use your own residual mana to simply draw upon the mana inherent in the other dimensions pushing against our own and with enough practice, you can even stack them on top of one another.

"Problem is, it's difficult to teach and even more difficult to execute. Imagine tying and untying the world's biggest knot of string over and over. Sure, with enough time you'd be able to do it expertly, but that's the problem. Time. You'd practically have to be lost in one of these dimensions yourself to be able to find the time to practice. That can take decades, if not centuries. And it's possible since your body wouldn't be the one aging, but your mind."

Shaking her head, Synthia blinked at the heady explanation. Evarius chuckled nervously. "It's very, very hard to do, and easy to get lost in another reality."

"I see." Synthia nodded.

"No you don't," Iggy said flatly. Livian couldn't help but snicker this time.

"I mean... it's just weird. I read stuff like this in my stories, but it was way simpler." Synthia scratched the back of her neck. "But there's one thing that's bothering me. If this power affects every car, then why is it the paper was reporting that only one car would have murder-suicides? So are we dealing with somebody different?"

Evarius nodded. "See? The girl's sharper than you guys give her credit for. But the murder-suicides would always take place in the front car. Now that we know the extent of these abilities, we can understand how that would come about. Time would pass so fast in the front car the others wouldn't even notice something was wrong. But this time, it seems this man has a more specific objective." He pointed at the Mioja. "And I think I know what's different this time.

Synthia shuddered. "Yeah. I'd say that's it. That bastard in the green cloak... couldn't fight me head-on, so he's using everybody hear as hostages.

Christoph nodded. "Yep. I think you're correct that it's probably him. I wonder if bumping into me had something to do with activating his power? He did come from further up ahead, meaning he could've triggered it on people without us seeing it."

Nodding, Synthia stood up. "I guess that leaves you out of the train expedition crew. You need to stay here since we don't know what will happen if you leave."

"Crew?" Iggy asked.

"Yeah. If this guy's gone up ahead, then all we can do is chase after him. Even if it takes us a million gajillion years. We'll find him and rescue everybody trapped on this whacko death ride."