What Will You Do?

You have left your home, maybe you came from far or maybe you lived on the train line but as of the current hour you are on the train. The massive, matte iron engine pulls behind it two cars for mail, one for larger packages and luggage, and three more for large cargo such as shipments of food stores or stained glass windows or animal pelts. There are no cars for passengers as this train is not a passenger train, though there are hinged benches in the mail car that can be pulled down to seat around 10 people who care about room for personal space or 20 if they don’t.

There is one bench in the engine room to the left and behind the large chair reserved for the conductor. This is where you sit, nervous perhaps because you are far from home, perhaps because of the mysteries that lie ahead, or perhaps not because the tall, muscle-bound conductor with his skin as dark as pitch and his skirts as soft as kitten whiskers has kept you entertained with such stories as you have never heard.

Three hours into your journey Cherry, the physically intimidating conductor with the twangy drawl, says over his massive shoulder,

“The station’s just up ahead, sugar.”

So you grab onto the bar by the open door and hang out, watching the small wooden cabin sitting on its natural stone platform come closer and closer. As it pulls up, the steam engine lets off not a piercing whistle, but a deep wail that you can feel in your bones, shaking the ground and bouncing stray pebbles on the ground around the crude station. You look back at Cherry incredulously but she just shrugs and gives you an indulgent smile,

“I didn’t pick it out but dang if it don’t do the job.”

You step out of the engine and catch your first glimpse of the town.

Ahead are two windmills bracketing the cobbled footpath with their names scrawled down the sides. Beyond that is a blocky square church on the left and a peacekeepers barracks on the right. Past them is a straight away shot of shops stretching into the distance. To the far left are animal pastures and beyond that the iron mine sits deep into the side of Firenight Mountain in the distance. To the far right lays fields of wheat and barley and vegetables. In the far, far distance, farther than anything else you can see, is a massive band of green on the horizon.

What will you do?

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