When Beck woke, he found Kenna staring at him.

He almost jumped out of skin, but settled for going through the bottom of the tent. By the time he realized what actually happened, he was staring up into the morning sky while the woman in his tent laughed her ass off. He sighed, then stood and dusted the dirt and sand from his pants. For the second time in as many days, he was very thankful that he wore his clothes to sleep.

With Kenna still laughing inside the tent, Beck reached over the top of the structure and pulled the main support limbs over to the side, causing the entire thing to come falling down on top of her. The brief noise of surprise was enough to assuage him. When she stood, laughing once more, with the material still on her head, she looked like a giant kid pretending to be a ghost.

Her laugh proved infectious, with Beck joining in the laughter as she disentangled herself from the tarp. Once they had both recovered and the offending fabric was removed, Beck started to finish packing his things. "So, what were you doin'? Just watchin' me sleep?"

Kenna simply leaned against her massive pick, running a finger along its beak. "Just waiting on you to wake up." Her lips twisted into a mocking smile. "I've been up since sunrise, by the way."

Beck sighed, his lips trilling like a horse. "Couldn't sleep."

Kenna laughed, in turn. “Yeah, I can understand that. I’m pretty excited, too.”

Beck nodded as he put his belt on. He _had_ been excited, even if that wasn’t the reason he was up so late. Once he gathered all his things, he turned to his musclebound companion. "You ready to go?"

Kenna's smile stretched to its limit, her perfect teeth glinting in the early sun. "I thought you'd never ask."

She took Beck's hand and dragged him along behind her, to the point that he had to make an effort to keep up or be pulled off his feet. Tents turned into buildings, the tallest of which was the local saloon at three stories. If a local owned it, it'd have been easy to say he was doing well for himself, but in reality, it was another branch of the Scarlet Creek Casino, the same people who ran the train.

That also meant that the building was surrounded by an anti-magic field just a finger's width larger than the structure itself.

Kenna pulled him inside, and it was almost like he'd been transported to another world. The floor was marble shot through with veins of red, the walls were upholstered in alternating red and black, not to mention the scarlet clad staff, either going from patron to patron with drinks and food or running the various gambling tables.

Beck gave the woman standing beside him an incredulous look. "Do you even have any money? 'Cause I sure don't, and I know you ain't got a pass."

In response, Kenna merely gave him a grin and held up their train tickets. Beck's eyes widened. "No. You are not gamblin with our tickets!"

She laughed and pushed the tickets into his hand in response. "Look a little closer, stillwater."

He figured it out as soon as they touched his hand. They weren't tickets; they were actually passes. Copper passes, which not only gave them the ability to actually gamble in the establishments that Scarlet Creek had scattered around, but were instant admission to any train and the sleeping car. Not much privacy, but anything run by the Creek might as well have been the safest place on the continent.

They also cost ten gold pieces a year. Each.

Beck looked back to his companion. “You owe me some answers.”

The large woman simply chuckled and plucked one of the passes from his hand. “In a bit.” Her face twisted into a smirk as she held up a few silver pieces in her other hand. “I’m gonna get us some spending money.”

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A couple hours later, the pair of them sat in silence on a bench outside. Beck thumbed his pass, while Kenna held her head in her hands. The passes alone were worth more money than anything he had ever held before, up until he had been given the focus gun, whose weight was a somewhat uncomfortable addition to his belt.

“So that was all our money for food, huh?”

“Mmmmmhm.”

"Welp. Guess we're gonna have to hope its free on the train, then."

Kenna remained silent. Her shoulders were slumped, and from where he was sitting, Beck could see her muscles bunched up underneath her armor. He laid an uncertain hand on her shoulder, immediately withdrawing it when she flinched, before she leaned into him. The force almost threw him off the side of their shared seat, but he was able to brace himself. She was heavy.

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Once he had re-established his seating, they stayed that way for a while, neither saying a word. Having the large woman leaning on him wasn't comfortable, especially with both of them wearing armor, but he didn't protest. Instead, he simply pat her other shoulder.

His arm had just started to go numb when they started to call for boarding. The conductor's voice carried a ways past them, echoing off the nearby buildings to give the sound a strange reverberation. Kenna apparently fell asleep at one point, because she jerked straight up at the noise, her head whipping around and smacking him in the face with her fiery ponytail.

As the two made their way to the Copper boarding area, they ran into a familiar face, clad in his too-big armor, his helmet held to his side. Directly in front of them in the line stood Mason, a circular shield as wide as his torso was long slung across his back and his father's forging hammer pushed into his belt.

Beck placed his hand on his fellow youth's shoulder. "Fancy seein' you here."

Mason jumped, almost dropping his helmet as he whipped around. He looked like he was about to try and hit Beck with it before his eyes focused. "Beck? I thought you were..." His eyes landed on Kenna. "... Oh. So uh, you two know where the train's goin'?"

That was actually a good question. Beck looked to the woman at his side, who simply shrugged. With a sigh, he turned back to Mason. "Nope. I assume that means you don't, either?"

The granite-skinned young man nodded. "Yep. Just spent most of what's left of my money to get a ticket."

To their right, the last of the Silver boarders were climbing onto the train. A gnome in a scarlet vest and pants with a blue undershirt hopped onto the railing at the back of the Silver sleeper car. His reedy voice cut through the noise of conversations around them, "Alright, Copper passes board first, ticket holders second. Please organize yourselves into two lines, one for each car."

The lines formed, with Kenna and Beck around the middle of theirs. Mason was nowhere to be seen in the throng of people jostling to be as close to the front as possible. By the time Kenna spotted him, they were almost at the front, and he had secured a space squarely in the middle of his queue.

Inside, the accommodations could only be described as basic. Stone benches fixed to the floor without any form of cushion, and windows that were simply holes in the car. Compared to sitting on a lobster with a shell made mostly of rock, though, it might as well been the most comfortable chair Beck had even sat on. Which wasn't saying much, but it was still nice.

Before they could sit down, they were directed to the sleeping car, where they stored their belongings without much fuss. Beck removed his armor, though Kenna elected to keep hers on. That done, they were finally seated. Within the next thirty minutes or so, the hissing of the brakes disengaging alerted the passengers to their imminent departure. Shortly after, they began to move, and the town was soon left behind.

The machine picked up speed steadily, and before long, Dryharbor disappeared behind the hills. Looking out the windows, to one side was dry dirt, but to the other, the coast was in full view. They were still a mile from where the ocean met the land, but the view was clear of obstruction.

In the distance, Beck could see a ship sailing into the horizon, and closer to the shore, a group of tens of massive snakes coiled through the waves. Despite the beautiful view from the window, though, his immediate attention was on just how fast they were going. The wind whipped at his face and hair like never before, and when he looked to closer features, such as the ever-present cacti, the only thing he could make out was a green blur that might have had protrusions off its side.

After a good twenty or so minutes of watching the land and sea zip by, Kenna pulled at his shoulder. He turned to her, only to see that she had slipped the focus gun from its holster while he was looking away. The smile on her face seemed genuine this time, though, as opposed to the usual mischievous grin. Her tongue pressed ever so slightly out of her teeth as she spun the weapon around her index finger.

Beck made to reclaim his property, but the big woman simply held it out of reach. He didn't push further, instead simply sitting back and holding out his hand. "That was a gift."

Kenna stuck her tongue out at him and blew a raspberry. "You're gonna have to earn [Mana Manipulation] if you wanna use this." Despite her words, she dropped the weapon back into his hand. "I couldn't use it either, though."

Beck holstered the focus gun once more, an eyebrow quirked at the woman's choice of words. "What do you mean? I saw what you did with your pick, and you said it was mana manipulation. Why wouldn't you be able to use it?"

Kenna sighed, slouching into their shared seat. "I just don't have the knack for the constructs. The skill doesn't cover them, and Mother never got to that point when she was teaching me. But I've made do with what I have." Her smile disappeared as she spoke, and though it returned after she finished, it was fragile.

Beck hesitated to speak. He couldn't let her sit in silence after that, though. "I didn't get to learn much either. What do you say we try to teach each other what we can? I ain't got much, but I might could show you a couple cactus recipes."

That got a laugh out of her, and her genuine smile returned. "I think I'd like that."

Soon, they were directed to the sleeper car for lunch, where Mason once more joined the pair. Lunch was a simple meal of cactus fruit and jerky of unspecified origin. Afterwards, the afternoon passed peacefully. That night, Beck slept across the car from Kenna, bunking with Mason.

When they awoke, the three of them found that the train hadn't stopped. Looking out the window, Beck could see the mountains that separated the Rusts from mainland Aldmoria in the distance. The sand had once more turned to the short, yellow-orange grass and cracked dirt that he was familiar with. The tracks still hugged the coast, but from here, Beck could see that as it grew closer to the mountain range, the tracks veered inland.

Following the direction they headed, it was visible that they ran up into one of the nearest mountains. So close to the orcs was a risk, but since Scarlet Creek had a station there, it was probably safer than it seemed. Or, it could be even more dangerous than it seemed.

He turned to Kenna. "How 'bout that first lesson?"