Axel used the scenery flowing by to relax and let his worries of the last few weeks leave him. As Axel adjusted his breathing and relaxed, a tension in his body let go, causing Axel to doze off into a dreamless sleep. Axel slept for a long time and only awoke when the sound of the carriage door opening with a loud slam was followed by stomping and another slam of the door connecting to the next carriage.
Axel saw that the suns was well across the sky at this point, meaning that he must have slept for at least three or four hours. Wondering what happened to his team, Axel got up and stretched, only to find a knife in his hand, which he sheathed. He then decided to look for everyone. A quick check of the carriage showed that no one was there, so Axel then moved on to the dining carriage. While partially filled, none of his group was there, so he asked one of the waiters, but he had just started his shift and did not seem to have seen anything.
The staff member did point out that two carriages forward there was an entertainment carriage. Axel decided to check this one out next. Two more diner carriages later, Axel arrived in what looked like a small casino with several tables where people were playing cards, a dice game, and a game where people were shuffling tiles. Almost right away, Axel found two of his group, a blond-winged woman and a red-haired woman, at two of the tables.
Aria was playing a card game with several people, and for some reason, she had a large amount of small coins on her side of the table. She even had one of the staff members moving some off the table to a case as the bumps on the ride would cause the pile to shift precariously. Lyra was shaking a cup with dice and then slamming it down. As she did, others at her table called out numbers and placed bets down. Oddly, Lyra was not making any bets but was receiving a small amount from the pot each time she shook the dice, much to her table’s enjoyment.
Axel left Lyra alone first, as from the body language of one of the men at the table Aria was at, he was losing more than he could afford. Axel moved over to the table as the angry man threw down his hand when Aria refused to up the chips in the center, and the man cursed in frustration, pulling a small pile of custom coins with a grumble.
“Hello, dear,” Aria looked up and smiled radiantly at Axel while putting her cards down. “Well, gentlemen, it looks like Aria’s time is up. Have fun!”
Aria then asked the staff member to move her coins to the case so she could leave. This caused the large man to argue that he did not get a chance to win his money back. Aria looked at him and shook her head sadly.
“Aria is sorry, but she will no longer be able to take your money,” Aria told the man with a sweet smile. “Please have a great day!”
A large vein throbbed on his head, but to Axel’s surprise, he made no move and sat at the table with a grunt, telling a staff member with a deck of cards to deal another hand. Aria received the case holding her coins and tried to hand a few to the person, only to be refused as it was against the rules to receive gifts from passengers.
Axel and Aria then moved over to Lyra’s table, and he could see her using her power to shake the cup in interesting ways. Axel saw right away how she was shaking, why the group of gamblers were paying more attention to her than their bets. After the cup slammed down and bets were placed, Lyra moved the cup, showing three dice. The person with the closest bet won. The coins at this table were not even a quarter of what was being placed down from what Aria’s table was doing.
“Lyra, time to head out,” Aria said, touching Lyra’s elbow.
“Good,” Lyra replied, putting the cup to the side and taking the small amount of chips that were pushed to her from the winner. “Well, everyone, I need to go. Please have a great time.”
Everyone at the table booed and tried to get her to keep going, but Lyra just shook her head and left with Axel and Aria. Aria then led the way to the back of the carriage that held a small room with a woman sitting in it. Aria handed her case, and Lyra took out a small bag to hand over. Each received a pouch of money for what was returned.
Axel just shook his head and waited for the money to be counted out and handed over. Aria then led everyone out of the carriage and back to theirs. A couple of times Axel tried to say something, Aria placed a finger on his lips to stop him until they were in their group area with the door shut.
“So, what is going on?” Axel asked after sitting down.
“Aria didn’t want to talk and walk with this money out in the open,” Aria replied. “The casino carriage had an expert protecting it from fights, but that protection stops after leaving.”
“That makes some sense, but I’m still confused about how you two ended up there and where the others went,” Axel asked while leaning back.
“Well, Pearl was at my table until I trounced her at poker,” Aria said proudly. “After she left in a huff, Aria does not know, while Sky went to talk to an engineer about the train, and Jareth went to talk to other merchants about something.”
“I lost all of my money at the dice game, so the players said if I would be the dice shaker, I could make my money back,” Lyra said while her face was slightly red. “I also noticed the more enthusiastically I shook the dice, the bigger the amount of chips that would be sent my way.”
Axel laughed as the red crept all the way to the top of Lyra’s face, but after a breath, he looked at her, saying, “Sorry!”
“Yeah, laugh it up,” Lyra put her face in her hands and said in a quiet voice. “It was fun to do, though.”
“That’s the spirit!” Aria came over and hugged Lyra, causing the shade of red to go deeper on the woman’s face to start matching the hue of her hair.
Aria then went into detail about how bad the people at the table were with their tells and that if they had gone to any den in the city, they would have been fleeced for every coin and then dumped on the street naked. This reminded Axel that he and Aria led really different lives before they met as Aria moved to stories of learning the game to get better at being a scout. Axel was not sure how the two interacted but let Aria tell her stories.
Another couple of hours later, Sky entered and took a seat.
‘The engineering and power circuits are so amazing!’ Sky told everyone while spinning her seat around. ‘The size, complexity, and power throughput are works of art.’
‘The engineers who run this train say that there is already a better version in the works,’ Sky gushed over her mind link. ‘I really wish I could take it apart, but that would get me in so much trouble. But what I could learn!’
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Sky then started explaining formulas and other circuit-related knowledge with how it related to a project as big as the main engine of the train. Aria just nodded along while attempting to teach Axel and Lyra how to play poker. The game seemed simple, but as she started to do practice games, it got much more complicated for Axel as he had to keep the used cards in his head, run the odds, and make reads of Lyra’s and Aria’s body language.
Time passed quickly, and the twin suns set before anyone knew it. Pearl, Larimar, and Jareth returned and joined in the game. After Aria destroyed everyone several times in a row, Pearl pulled out a box of tiles and taught everyone a matching game with them. When Pearl also kept losing to Aria in this, Jareth called an end to the games and suggested they all call it a day there.
--
The night passed swiftly, and day two of the ride got exciting as the morning came with the train hitting something followed by the sounds of fighting. A small horde of beasts seemed to be running alongside the train and were being fought off by the security team. Axel watched as powers of light, fire, and lightning were combined by an Expert into a branching chain attack that killed dozens of beasts in a strike. There was a combatant flashing between each beast, making precision strikes to weak points and moving on to the next.
Axel could not see what was happening on the other side, but from the sound, it was just as intense. The strangest thing was the train did not even slow down at all. With that excitement over, everyone cleaned up as the train even had a carriage for showering and ate before regrouping in their lounge room to make plans.
“Alright, so we are heading to Stormwatch,” Jareth said and put down a map on the table. The map showed a mountainous region that held three of the sacred mountains. Jareth then pointed out several pre-circled areas on the map that ran along the jungle mountains.
“These areas will be our targets for the hunts,” Jareth used his pen to point at each. “These areas are known to hold beasts at mid to end Novice and up to mid-level Adept beasts.”
“As our group is mixed, this will work in our favor.” Jareth then pointed to Pearl and Larimar. “They need to hunt and will take the lead on any Adept beasts, while Axel will take the lead on any beasts that are of the Novice rank.”
“Now, these areas need to be avoided at all costs if possible,” Jareth then circled several mountain areas. “These are the Storm Drake nesting grounds, and I really don’t want to be food for a hatchling.”
“Jareth, I would suggest not hunting in the second area,” Axel pointed and added. “I have done some research on Storm Drakes in Greenhaven, and that one is well within the range they hunt in for food.”
“Good point,” Jareth then marked off the spot with an X. “That leaves locations one and three.”
“One will likely be heavily hunted as it is close to the city,” Pearl pointed out. “It will be harder to get prey there as it will have learned the habits of hunters.”
“Location three is also bad,” Larimar said. "I checked storm reports before we headed out since you told me we were heading this way, and since the last Starfall and beast tide, that location’s population was shifted around.”
“Well, this is just what I could gather from the other merchants,” Jareth said with a sigh. “These were the areas with the lowest risk to reward.”
Jareth then marked a location deeper in the jungle near a village named Rainshadow. This village likely hunted for the city to sell the meat, cores, and hides of the local beasts. Axel looked over the area terrain and found a spot a few miles away from the village. Using his knowledge from his training, he pointed out an area of the map that had a large water source and met the criteria of beasts he researched before.
“This should be a good hunting spot,” Axel said.
“Why?” Pearl asked. “With such a big water source, it is likely to draw high populations of Adept level beasts. It could be dangerous if the number of beasts is too high.”
“If you look at this, this, and this,” Axel then pointed out a pair of mountains in the area and a deep gorge. “That is the kind of habitat that Quakes enjoy. This will keep the populations of Adept tier beasts down as they are territorial to other larger beasts and will be good hunting.”
“Quakes being herbivores means that they are less aggressive and move in small herds of no more than six and are often alone,” Axel said while then pointing out the village. “The village is also unlikely to hunt this area as here and here I would bet a lot of money are Tempest beast territories, so the village would likely hunt in the other direction for safety.”
“Aria can see a path we can take if we don’t go to the village and come south from this village,” Aria pointed out a path that avoided the Tempest beast territory and led right into a location near where the Quake would be. “This should be a relatively safe route, but we would need to take it slow until we reach the hunting ground to not disturb any of the predators around there.”
“Seems like a plan, but I will keep talking to the other merchants to see if I can sound out any other safer locations. But Quakes sell very well as they are hard to locate and hunt as their territory is deeper in the jungle normally or on the plains in large herds,” Jareth said after thinking for a while. “After this hunt, your group can use the Trial in Stormwatch to complete a cycle. Pearl, you will need a while, right?”
“Yes, Larimar and I just finished our second cycle, so unless we hunt high-maturity Adept beasts, we will need quite a while for this cycle,” Pearl replied while scanning the map. “But if the Quakes are there, we may be able to speed it up.”
“We also only have a couple of months to hunt, so this should be a good spot before we would need to return to our duty in the Tidewalkers,” Larimar added. “We were originally set for the great river guarding before you contacted us, and those posts are hard to get.”
“I understand,” Jareth nodded. “I thank you again for this favor.”
“Don’t think about it, Uncle,” Pearl shook her head saying. “What are family for? Plus, we can earn more at Cycle three if we can complete it in these couple of months.”
“That is not to say that Stormwatch is not also a great place as it has several crimsons with abilities that you can only find here that we both are looking for,” Larimar added with a smile.
“So it’s true that after Novice, the various cities have variants that only appear in their city?” Axel asked. “I saw it mentioned in a couple of books but could not find anything that was verifiable as there were other books that said that any crimson will show in any city.”
“Kinda true,” Pearl looked from the map to Axel. “It is more that the higher the tier, the more certain types have evolved more often in different cities for various reasons.”
“In the Adept tier, given time, you would be able to find a crimson you want, but this could lead to weeks of searching and stagnation if what you are looking for does not evolve often in your city,” Larimar continued from where her sister left off. “This is why flame seekers originally came from as people would travel the land to find the crimson they wanted for their power sets.”
“Flame seeking is also difficult as each trial is different from the other, so if you are used to the dangers in one, they could be completely different in another,” Pearl picked up in a bored tone. “For example, if Greenhaven had a lot of mind benders, you would likely pick up defenses to protect against them, but say Stormwatch has no Mind Benders but Lava Fiends, you would want protection against heat.”
“Thank you for clearing that up for me,” Axel thanked each of them. “I was always curious about that.”
The conversation moved on from that but sputtered out after a list of supplies was made. The ride to Stormwatch continued unhindered after that, with the guards on the train taking care of several more issues but nothing that Axel and his group needed to be involved in. As the train traveled through a tunnel drilled through a small mountain, Axel saw Stormwatch for the first time.
It was a strange sight as it was built up alongside the mountain with what looked like a several-tiered system of buildings with hundreds of landing pads. At the base of the mountain, there was a large wall similar to what surrounded Greenhaven, but Axel could see many of the buildings were carved into the side of the mountain as it expanded.
There was also another set of towers that loomed over the walls built the same way as the Vanguard that Axel stayed at before. As Axel looked over the city, he saw many strange metal contraptions that came out of the older-looking buildings that had wires running to them. Axel could also see a storm coming on the horizon filled with a deep pressure—a powerful late spring storm.