Ow, my head. I though as I woke up on a hard surface. I was no longer in my soft, comfy bed, but instead lying against a cold, hard metallic surface. Twilight filtered through gaps in the metal box I found myself in, dimly illuminating the area I was in. Within moments, a large blue box appeared in my vision.

Greetings, human! You are among several dozen chosen people from across the multiverse to become a Conductor in this Cycle. To continue, think “Status”.

What? I mentally sputtered. I tried waving in front of my face, yet the blue screen remained. After a moment, I decided to play along with what the blue box wanted. Status.

Name: Thomas Smith

Level: 1

Class: Conductor

EXP: 0/10

Health: 100%

Resources: 0

Mana: 100%

Skills: 0

Stamina: 100%

Traits: 2

This is your Status screen. Within, you will find various information as to your current physical status, experience gained, level, and several sub-menus which we will get to later. For now, you will have found yourself waking up within your Engine’s cabin. Take some time to look around and get acquainted with your new home.

“Okay, now this is some weird bullshit,” I said quietly to myself. I go to bed in my home, now I wake up in this... Engine? I stood up slowly, joints creaking and the knees giving a satisfying pop as I finished. The light had increased a small amount, showing me in a rusted-out and decayed hulk of a room, the walls filled with gauges of unknown providence. Everything was covered in dust and rust, making me wonder just what the hell I had gotten stuck with.

“One thing is for sure,” I again continued the trend of talking to myself, “is that this is much wider than a normal locomotive.” Now, to be fair, I was not a locomotive engineer before coming to my current predicament. I did, however, have an extensive wealth of information thanks to a combination of boredom, interest in various hobbies, and the internet, when it comes to random bits of knowledge. Using the tried-and-true method of putting one foot directly in front of the other, I estimated the interior of this cabin at about fifteen feet wide at the widest point and ten long on the lower floor, the entire cabin roughly twenty feet long once the stairs and upper floor were taken into account. Height-wise was a bit tougher, but I estimated it at a comfortable twenty foot, based purely off my own five-foot-six frame. The door at the back of the cabin was stuck fast, much to my annoyance.

Towards the front of the cabin was a set of stairs along both walls, leading to a trio of seats, each rotted out and barely a rusty stump remaining. The windows let in no light, unlike the gaps in the ceiling and walls, but what I could see were more gauges, levers, and oddly enough a few cracked computer screens. I wiped an inch of dust off the central console screen, finding a pristine key shaped object laying under it when the screen crumbled at my touch. It had a thin, intact stainless-steel chain attached to it, so I put it around my neck for safe keeping.

Hello there, Conductor! By now, you should be familiar with your [ERROR]-class Engine Cabin. Right now, it is in a state of severe disrepair, but do not fret! Your cabin’s door should be openable now, allowing you to exit your Engine and take a look around the Tutorial Railyard area. This area is on a separate plane of reality to the world you will find yourself and other Conductors within to get you familiar with the System and operating your Engine.

With a crack of age-welded metal suddenly separating, the door at the rear opened a fraction of an inch, leaving a small pile of rust chips on the floor along with a beam of light illuminating the space further. Cautiously, I walked up to it, allowing my eyes to adjust to the new light levels. Trying a gentle push, the door stubbornly refused to open further.

“Great,” I sighed and put my shoulder into opening the door. It gave with a horrendous screech, allowing me outside. I blinked the daylight into focus.

Before my eyes lay a vast expanse of an abandoned train yard, though to my left and right I saw bewildered people also exiting their own massive Engines. Between each new Conductor was about a football field in space, littered with rubble, junk, and the occasional shed. Each train that I could see, consisted of an Engine, a tender -which I noticed my Engine currently lacked-, a flatbed car, a boxcar, and a caboose, each massive in size.

I stepped gingerly onto the rear platform of my Engine and looked down. Ah, knuckle-style couplers. That’s good, I think. Goddamn though, everything’s huge! I looked up and took another good look around and walked over to the right side of the platform, looking down. A ten foot drop greeted me, thankfully there were steps leading to the ground on either side of the coupler that were intact enough for me to walk down to the ground. I walked a few paces further, then turned around to take a look at my new home.

It was an absolutely huge rusted hulk of metal in the vague shape of a locomotive. Two hundred feet long, fifty wide, and fifty tall, it just oozed fallen grandeur and menace. Why menace? Because on the very front of the Engine was a massive armored plow that took up a good chunk of its length. It was styled like a typical wedge-type train plow, with the angles of the plow leading up on either side, and then a mirrored overhang with a thick central rib connecting the two. It was pitted and cratered, not just from rust. From my time in the US Army Engineers during the North Americas Unification War, I had seen my fair share of shell impacts upon armor, both in weapons tests mostly from repairing armored vehicles near the front lines. The fact that the largest impacts had left craters the size of a basketball, without blowing through, laid testament to how thick the armor was. It all sat upon wheels that I could barely see through the thick armor panels that lined the Engine, leaving a small gap from which I could see them near the bottom. And below those massive wheels laid the tracks, which looked to be roughly fort-five feet wide between the two rails.

A large ramp angled down from the top of the plow to a walkway on the side of the Engine, which had plates of steel all along the length; many had fallen off at some point, however, leaving gaps in the armor all along it. Throughout the remaining panels, however, I noticed pockmarks that definitely hadn’t come from rust, as well as large holes from something large piercing through them. Large claw-like rents in the plates were also present, definitely from different creatures, as they ranged from three to five gashes. Weirdly enough there were also single-slashes, like someone had attempted hacking at the Engine with a sword semi-successfully.

Centered right behind the plow was a large block of steel with a ruined hunk of rust-laden metal on the top, doors and hatches leading into it sealed shut through corrosion. Behind this lay looked to be another cabin, built into the large rectangular centerline box that ran the length of the Engine. Note to self, investigate that later. Might have to find a crowbar, though. Along the walkways were several covered protrusions, each had a door leading inside, and what looked to be the wreckage of some sort of weapon sticking out the side.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Congratulations! Through careful attention paid to your Engine, you have unlocked the Active Skill: Analyze Level 1. Five EXP awarded!

“So this place is like one of my video games,” I chuckled and shook my head gently. Hmm, I wonder if this’ll work... Analyze.

Titan Engine K-A-XU-0625 (Mythic)

Fuel: 100%

Level: 0 (Wreck)

Coolant: 0%

Integrity: 12.5%

Train Cars: 3/0

My eyebrows rose as I looked at the simple stat sheet my Engine had. How do I level this thing up? 

Quest acquired: Repair your Engine!

Task: Acquire Five tons of scrap metal from the surrounding area to use in Engine repairs. This task will be completed when you fully repair your Engine.

My eyes nearly popped out of my head as I saw the requirement for the repairs. “Five tons? Where the hell am I--” I looked around, spotting a pile of metal nearby a shed about twenty feet from me. Further down, past the caboose, was a large warehouse-looking building along with piles of gravel, sand, coal, and more metal. People were moving towards piles and I watched as the closest one to me put their hands to one of the piles of coal, and the pile suddenly disappeared into motes of light that disappeared as fast as they appeared. The lady did a little happy-dance and moved off to another pile of resources.

I walked up to the scrap pile by the shed and held out my hand on the pile. [Would you like to acquire: 800Lbs of Scrap Metal?] “Yes,” I said, and suddenly the entire pile disappeared into motes of light, and I saw something change in my vision. 

At the top of my view was a new translucent bar with [Metal: 800/20,000Lbs] [Coal: 0/20,000Lbs] [Wood: 0/20,000Lbs] [Water: 0/2240 Gallons]. “Huh, so I can carry ten tons of each of these resources in my... inventory?”

As if the screen was waiting for the word, a new screen popped up, showing both myself in a lightly spinning 3D view, along with boxes flanking said self. Jesus Christ on a cracker, it IS like a video game! Below the avatar and boxes was another, much larger box that was broken up into segments. The screen showed me in all my inglorious pajamas; a dirty white undershirt, gray sweatpants, black socks, old sandals, the key I had acquired in the cabin, and my dog-tags. I tapped on the undershirt in the screen and made a motion to move it into the lower box, and was unsurprised when my shirt disappeared, exposing my pasty white dad bod to the open air. What intrigued me was that the undershirt took up an entire ‘slot’ within the inventory, leading me to believe I would have to seriously up my Tetris skills in the future. I quickly put the shirt back on, and walked over to the shed.

The door was broken, the top half missing. I gave the door handle a gentle tug and let out a sigh of relief as the door opened smoothly without crumbling to bits in my hand. I walked into the shed and looked around. The place was clearly an employee lounge of sorts, with a ratty leather couch on one side, a small table in the center with intact wooden chairs, a few closed cabinets, and a closed, rusty metal locker unit on the other side. I inspected the cabinets, finding suspiciously pristine cans of food and a whole crate of bottled water. I put these in my inventory, finding it filling up rapidly at all the individual cans, though I was pleased to see that identical cans ‘stacked’ in the same spot, gaining a small counter to note how many I had of that item.

“Now, ain’t this something?” I chuckled as I opened the first locker, finding an old locomotive engineer’s uniform. I quickly put it on and checked myself out in the little spinning avatar. The uniform was fairly baggy as I put it on, likely intended for someone with a larger body than I had. Within moments of putting the soft hat on, the uniform shrank to fit my body comfortably. “Not bad, not bad at all.” 

A pair of denim overalls, a denim button up shirt, a red bandana, some hard leather boots, and a soft hat completed the ensemble. In the second locker, a 3-piece suit and hat with the word CONDUCTOR on a brass plaque above the short brim. Surprisingly, that uniform only took one slot in my inventory. Curious, I used Analyze on it.

Formal Conductor Uniform (Uncommon): Worn by all Trade and People Transportation focused Conductors through the ages. People are more inclined to listen to what you have to say, and offer more favorable deals while wearing this suit. These effects do not take effect if your conversational partners see you switch into the uniform, however. That loophole was patched after the first Cycle.

Huh, that’s rather... informative, I thought to myself, noting that the blue box had a bit of snark at the end there. I swapped it out for the uniform I currently had on and did the same to it.

Conductor’s Engineer Uniform (Common): Reduces repair costs by 5%, crafting costs by 10%, and increases resources gained through all non-trade gathering by 50% while worn.

I quickly changed back to the Engineer uniform before I even finished reading the box. That is going to come in so handy in this area. I thought as I mentally cringed upon realizing that if I had the uniform before gathering that pile of scrap, I would have a little over a half-ton of material to work with. Now, let’s see here...

I walked over to the couch and held out my hand like I had for the scrap pile. I smiled as I got a box asking whether I would like to put it into my inventory or salvage it for resources. I chose the latter option and was rewarded with [Leather Scraps x25] showing up in my inventory as the couch poofed into light motes, leaving just a dusty outline behind. The lockers gave me a third option, that being [Repair], which piqued my interest. I hit the third option, and watched as the lockers glowed for ten seconds. When the glow faded I was left with a factory-fresh locker set, and I was down 190 pounds of scrap.

“Now, that doesn’t make any sense,” I muttered. A blue box sprang to life before my eyes.

Repairing items, your Engine, and train cars all consume resources. Depending on the quality of materials within your Resource Inventory, an amount will be deducted to enact the repairs or upgrades. In this case, scrap metal is consumed at a significantly higher amount compared to non-scrap metal, while the System sorts through the resource to find the usable bits.

“Thank you, mysterious blue box.” I swear I saw a small [You’re Welcome.] added to the end of the box as it exited my vision, but I chalked that up to a simple case of ‘It must have been my imagination.’ 

I attempted to put the newly-repaired locker in my inventory, but got a small red [ERROR: Item too large for current Inventory.] message box. I grumbled and took a seat on one of the chairs for a few minutes, thinking on how I could take the fixed locker with me. No, that’d be too simple. It won’t work. I thought to myself as I started emptying my inventory of the various cans that had cluttered it up and placing them inside the locker.

“I can’t believe that worked,” I said aloud another minute later, seeing the locker taking up half my available inventory slots, one locker of the unit completely filled with cans and the other still empty. Shaking my head, I exited the shed, looking around for more resource piles that I could claim. 

Half an hour later, I was looking at the door of the warehouse I had spotted earlier, having gathered five tons of coal, two of wood, one-hundred and twenty gallons of water, and annoyingly enough no metal. The door took a little bit of elbow grease, wherein it crashed to the ground beside me and gave me the option to salvage it. I did, and gained myself fifteen pounds of scrap metal for my troubles.

The interior was lit fairly evenly through the broken skylights and high-up windows along the walls, allowing me to spot a great deal of large wheeled hoppers, lockers in various states of openness, a locked door with a large padlock on it; closing off half of the warehouse, and a large mess hall off to my immediate right. 

I approached the first of the large hoppers, which were the size of a minivan. This one had scrap metal poking out the top, and netted me a hefty 1500 pounds of metal to work with. I pumped a fist in the air and looked at the other hoppers. Within minutes, my metal resource total was full, as was the one for wood. The mess hall brought with it the filling of the other half of my locker with canned foods and even two boxes of US-Army grade MREs, which I found odd but didn’t question. 

As I was starting to open up the first of the lockers, I heard footsteps behind me.