Absear Train Station
Type: Transit
Entrance: None known. Any entrance to Absear is still considered Ghost Pussy.
Connections: Absear is in the “center” of the Silent City and has several lines that reliably travel to known demesnes, including: Bulgone, Churmish, the Factory and Tick-Tock.
The Place: Absear stands in the “center” of the Silent City. A crooked tower with octopoid arms of elevated rail lines radiating from its center. Safe from the constant shelling of Silent City, the Absear station serves as a hub of activity and traffic for many hells. It should be noted that various Hellcrashers have attempted to molest the rail lines in various ways, including damaging them to derail a train, following them to attempt to walk to their designations, leaping onto trains and riding them from the outside and such. All such attempts have led to terrible and deadly failures.
Inside, Absear is a cluttered, dirty train station full of the sounds of train engines, scuffling feet, a great clock, rattling ticket machines and little else. The visitors of Absear have learned their lesson. A whispered word will land one mutilated and tortured with ruthless efficiency. No words or lettering are anywhere to be seen and would be useless if they did appear. Ubiquitous pictographic signs feature stick figures putting fingers to their lips, a fist with a bar across it, a stick figure slyly removing an item from another, oblivious stick figure’s bag with a bar through it and two stick figures holding a set of scales between themselves with a bar through it. In short: No Talking, No Violence, No Stealing, No Soliciting. While talking and violence are never risked, stealing and solicitation are. Hence pick pocketing and finger whoring occur with semi-regularity.
The great clock is a large clock face with minute and hour marks, but no numerals. Its loud ticking is easily heard throughout the station. Many have noted that another side effect that is particular to Absear as opposed to the Silent City is a slower time flow. A single hour spent in Absear is a solid week or more of time that has passed topside. One notable Hellcrasher group entered Absear in late 1979 and spent eight days in there before they realized their wounds weren’t healing as they had in other demesnes. They reached Topside in the fall of 1983.
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Citizens: Though Absear is a bustling transit, full of thousands of travelers and refugee’s from various domains, all are under the laws of Absear, which is under the authority of the Silent City although, they don’t pick up new shackles by travelling here. As a result, anyone in Absear is functionally illiterate and cannot heal grievous wounds.
Authority: The authorities of the Silent City are the tonguers that rule over the entirety of the Silent City. Tonguers are military units, that strictly enforce the Silent City’s edict against speaking and the station’s laws banning violence, theft and solicitation. Since they use the train station as a headquarters, the station has many tonguer platoons at one time patrolling it and escape is very unlikely.
Costs: Boxy machines the size of a refrigerator are in every high traffic area of the station. They are made of dirty steel and stained plastic. Manual sliders allow a user to select their destination, arrival time and number of tickets. A tiny window in the machine displays a card with the cost of the tickets at the current settings. The smallest and most common price is “One finger (unspecified)” Distant locations, large groups (more than three) and sooner times may elevate the cost: One finger (unspecified), Pinkie, Ring, Middle, Two fingers (unspecified), Index, Three fingers (unspecified), Thumb and Hand (Sinister). Each location, time and price are identified by pictographic icons. Clock faces, counting scratches, hands and arrows identify the various settings.
A series of labeled holes of various sizes is arranged in an artful arching pattern. When a finger is placed fully into a hole, the machine rumbles and tremors in response and a blade slices the finger off at. Once the appropriate finger or fingers are collected, the machine dispenses the appropriate tickets. Fingers that have already been severed will not be acceptable payment. If you place your finger in the wrong hole or pay the wrong price…bummer. Like all wounds suffered in the Silent City, fingers claimed by the machine do not grow back, even in domains where they normally would.
A special class of souls that scout Absear are finger whores. Finger whores are weary persons that have designs on improving their lot and have found a single resource by which to move toward their goals. Finger whores prowl the station scouting for visitors rich enough in possessions to be worth trading one’s digits. Finger whore will pay one’s ticket costs in exchange for sizable payment. For a single finger, the price might be, “everything that one is carrying”. They are not stupid and they can play this game only a few times, so they know what they are after. The fewer fingers a finger whore has left, the higher the price one might expect. They will not make an offer to a person carrying little, nor will they be fine with, “ok, just let me keep my guns.” It’s usually an all or nothing proposition. They might forgo one weapon, but the weapons are likely one of the things most desirous to a finger whore. Adding to the tension these deals might normally elicit, there are strict laws forbidding such solicitation and all deal must be secure without the use of written or verbal language.
Notable Demons: the Engine Driver