Apocalypse Reset: My Crab Can Heal the World!

"Here we are - Chatran."

Skado points over the horizon. The setting sun sets the scene wonderfully as the land ahead of them is coated in amber light. Before them are rolling plains that cascade against a stone plateau that reaches high into the sky - so high it seems unreachable.

"We’re going UP?" Osmond balks. They’d just passed through the Pale Court, one of the lowest elevation points in the country. Now, looking up at the mighty plateau, this appears to be one of the highest.

"We’re going to take the Chatran Choo Choo," Skado smirks. He points something out against the eastern side of the great plateau, but in the low light of sunset, it’s a bit hard to see.

"Choo Choo?" Barns and Osmond ask simultaneously.

Skado crosses his arms cockily. "It’s one of the many secrets of how my city’s stayed alive all these years. The only way up there without flying is by using the train. And only about five or so people know how to operate the thing. Lucky for all of you, I happen to be one of them!"

Skado doesn’t just nerd out about poison and killing - he also goes off about trains. He spends the next hour detailing the whole process in excruciating detail as Osmond and Barns just try to listen along and wait for the rant to end.

It’s fully dark when they arrive at the train station at the base of the Chatran Plateau. Barns tries to look ahead on the tracks, but it’s too dark.

"So the train goes vertically up the side of the mountain?" he asks. He wasn’t paying too much attention to that part of Skado’s soliloquy.

"Oh yeah. But it’s best to wait until morning. In case Adon is around, we don’t want him to see what we’re up to."

They decide to hunker down and sleep in the train for the night - they’d ride up to the top in the morning when they had better visibility and when Adon couldn’t freely walk about. Then, they’d enter the hidden city.

They sit around an oil lantern, huddled in the small train car in a circle. It’s dark, but none of the three men are sleepy yet.

"So, uh…" Barns starts to break the growing and awkward silence. "How are things with you and Maria, Oz?"

"Fantastic," Osmond says, his demonic face lighting up into something almost human. "Oh my GOD, Barns - you have no idea. That advice you gave me…whew! I worry about the structural stability of Maria’s throat these days, because DAMN!"

Barns plays with a couple sticks on the ground. "She do be good at that…" he mumbles to himself.

"The what?" Skado asks, surprised.

Before they could entertain the thought, Skado hijacks the conversation - though it’s something Barns would much rather talk about than Maria’s oral fixation.

"I suppose I should tell you both a little something about the hidden city - and, Osmond. I mean no offense, but I think it’s best if you don’t come inside."

"You sound just like Maria," Osmond jests. Neither Barns nor Skado so much as smile at the joke - just deadpan silence.

"Anyway," Skado says, "A demon like you might scare some of the less open-minded folks. We’ve survived this long exactly because we haven’t made a habit of demons and vampires crawling into the city."

"I understand," Osmond says. "I’m happy to wait while you two settle business - I’ll keep an eye out for Adon as well."

Skado seems pleased with Osmond’s willingness. "The entire city is underground - the Chatran Plateau is almost fully hollow on the inside."

"For real!?" Barns says excitedly, his eyes sparkling. "That’s like something from a fantasy novel! Do you all live in the dark? Oh - do you have a colony of dwarves hanging out somewhere?"

Skado rolls his eyes. "Think of it more as a vault and less of a magical mineshaft," he suggests. Though he’s loathe to admit it, they do have a sizeable Dwarf population who call the shots in the lower levels.

Dwarves, like the other magical races, were in decline long before the Apocalypse began. Most humans didn’t think they even existed - the population living in the hidden city may have been the last group on the planet.

"We maybe have some dwarves," Skado says reluctantly. "But they don’t mix with the humans, much. They have quite the ’Underground’ culture, and I mean that metaphorically as much as literally."

"So cool!"

These are concepts that Barns has only ever dreamed of. Back in his first life, he rarely saw anyone outside of his Clan. And in this life…well, he did spend twelve years banging coconuts together on a beach.

"You gotta take me to meet the dwarves," Barns insists. He’s beaming like a little kid asking to go get ice cream.

Skado shuffles uneasily on the ground, pondering it.

"They’re not the friendliest," he says, his body language tense. "But hell, you’ve got a way with people. They might like you, as a fellow ’outsider’ of sorts."

Osmond hops up from the ground and walks toward the back of the train car. "I’ll be getting some rest now," he says. "To my dreams, where I can see my sweet Maria."

Skado raises an eyebrow at the statement, and Barns chuckles at the silly face. Thankfully, Osmond doesn’t notice the light teasing.

"I guess we should get some rest too," Skado says. He stands up and meticulously checks a few things on the train before settling down himself.

Barns crashes on the ground, next to the flickering lantern, and stares at the metal roof of the train. He watches the distorted shadow of the lantern cast strange shapes on the metal surface.

He loses track of time - it could have been thirty minutes, or three hours. He notices a low rumbling, thinking nothing of it - but he’s startled to action by the sound of scraping metal.

Skado is on his feet in an instant, rising from the ground like a vampire out of their coffin (assuming vampires sleep in coffins). He looks out the front of the train, seeing the bright lights coming from atop the mountain.

"The other train is coming from the top of the plateau! But why!?"