Just as the crowd began to suspect this fog was a prelude to disaster…

  at the heart of that thick, watchful mist, a shape began to emerge.

  Its form was sketched into being by the gray vapor, like a painter’s stroke revealing a masterpiece—slowly, deliberately.

  First came weathered, dark-gray brick columns.

  Then ornate, Victorian-style cast-iron arches and supports.

  A vast, ancient train ptform—scarred by the passage of time—simply developed into being on the manor’s wn, as if materializing from another reality.

  Its presence was so jarring, it felt as though some unseen hand, a being with godlike might, had ruthlessly pstered it here, ripped from another time and pce.

  The gas mps on the ptform cast a ghostly, sickly-green light, tinting the rolling fog with an unnerving, ominous hue.

  Murmuring started again—hushed, thick with fear and confusion.

  They wondered, what was this thing? A miracle? Or some unhallowed demon-spawn?

  Even Aurora, ever composed, and Betty, still fragile from her recent shattering, looked utterly lost. Elsa remained silent, but the subtle tension in her posture betrayed her unease.

  The only one who seemed perfectly calm was Pandora.

  Her eyes glinted. She turned to the three beside her.

  “It’s a ‘ptform.’”

  Sadly, with this world stuck in its medieval chaos, it was nearly impossible to expin what a ‘ptform’ was. She had to resort to concepts she hoped they might grasp. “Think of it… as a port for nd.”

  However, Aurora, Betty, and even Elsa just stared back, completely bewildered.

  Only then did Pandora remember—oh, right. This wasn’t just a medieval world. It was a Fragment World, with incomplete rules. They’d never seen a real port. The concept might have appeared in a handful of rare, ancient texts about merchants…

  But she didn’t need to expin any further.

  “Whoooo—”

  A long, mournful cry—a sound that seemed to tear directly through the soul—shattered the silence.

  It wasn’t a sound that traveled through the air. It was more like… an invisible mouth had pressed itself against every eardrum, the sound bring to life inside their skulls.

  Then, at the far edge of the fog, two points of dim yellow light ignited—like the indifferent eyes of a slumbering beast, stirring in the abyss.

  Accompanied by the rhythmic ctter of wheels on rails, cnk… cnk… ctter… a massive steam engine, painted entirely in bck and accented with brass fixtures, slid silently from the deepest part of the mist.

  It eased to a stop, perfectly aligned with the empty, ethereal ptform.

  In the eyes of all who watched, it was a monster from myth come to life, come to ferry them away.

  Only Pandora knew, this steel behemoth emerging from the depths of the fog… wasn’t a monster. It was an artifact from another age.

  The murmuring—which began with confusion, with specution—quickly curdled into a more infectious, undeniable terror!

  They feared this steel beast would swallow them whole, grinding their bodies into fuel for its journey.

  The crowd began to stir chaotically. People stumbled backward, shoving, screaming—

  But the flicker of chaos was swiftly stamped out by their respective leaders, through force or through soothing words.

  Dulles stood not far from the train. Even though this wasn’t his first time witnessing the monstrosity, his heart still hammered against his ribs whenever he id eyes on the strange, majestic “locomotive.”

  He felt that familiar sense of helplessness—the awe of the insignificant before the monumental—while also feeling a surge of reverence for whatever power could create such a miracle.

  Shaking himself from his stupor, he raised a hand and made a “forward” gesture to the blurry shapes in the fog. It was useless, really. The fog was too thick; those farther back couldn’t see him at all. The gesture was more for himself—a ritual to steady his nerves, to confirm the procedure was in motion.

  So… he cleared his throat, bellowing with all the power he could muster.

  “BOARD—!!”

  “Group by vilge! Stay quiet! One at a time, no pushing!”

  The crowd began to move, shuffling forward in a tense, fearful silence, bordering on numbness.

  Other than the leaders—Pandora, Arthur, Patrick, those who knew some of the truth or were just made of sterner stuff—most of the younger children showed clear signs of terror.

  And yet, instinctively, they obeyed. Like a flock of sheep guided by their shepherd, they filed one by one into the steel beast’s gashed-open belly.

  But once they stepped inside, the primal fear of the unknown monstrosity began to fade. They had never seen anything like the interior, of course. The decor, the materials—it was all strange, almost alien. Yet compared to the cold, oppressive steel exterior, the inside felt… familiar.

  It… was more like a room. A normal, almost opulently appointed room.

  Approaching the carriage, Pandora took one st look back at the manor, now completely obscured by fog and ptform, no longer visible.

  Then she turned and joined the flow of people.

  Aurora’s steps were heavy. The armor she’d left behind felt as if its weight had settled deep into her soul. Her hand instinctively brushed against the hilt of her sword. The familiar cold steel was a small comfort.

  Betty followed close behind Pandora, never letting her out of her sight.

  Elsa, ever vigint, scanned every shadowed corner of the carriage.

  The interior wasn’t spartan; it was divided into private compartments, each more spacious than Pandora had expected, with small windows overlooking an interior corridor.

  Pandora, along with the manor’s core members, entered the same compartment.

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