“Identification.” A bored looking elf clerk did not look up as she spoke. Do they all do that, look bored and put upon when doing menial things?

The adventuring sigil with the starkly contrasted black and yellow was worthy of her attention, at least enough for an upward glance. The moment passed like a snap of her fingers though, and it was back to smoke weed, count stacks, get fly, and take trips, or whatever it is elves daydream of. The thousand-yard stare into the floor of the platform persisted even while tapping some kind of unmarked cylinder down onto Karen’s sigil, accepting payment, and giving change.

It was shockingly cheap. Karen didn’t know what it took to operate a magic train, but she doubted it could be simple. Maybe it was subsidized by the state? Or did she get some kind of discount for being in the COPWAPTDT, or even for her new position of yellow? It had to be something, because the station alone was a work of art even without accounting for its greater function.

The main dome was held up by two central columns, both carved to look like the glowing trees she had seen only in Morez. The pale-blue boles climbed up into the ceiling where the weeping, white branches blended into the glowing white of the dome before falling back toward the platform, acting as hundreds of softly lit ropelike lights that issued an otherworldly glow to the entire building.

‘Breathtaking’ was the first thought she had when passing through the arching entrance, cut from the panoramic three hundred sixty degree glass walls. Its gradient of translucent to solid white, blending seamlessly into the dome, was broken only by entrances and grand depictions of individuals. Be they gods, royalty, or even generic depictions of the race, Karen couldn’t tell. Elves were all so generically beautiful it didn’t make a difference. Even the clerk she’d bought her ticket from would have been at home up on the glass. That’s probably what they were: forty-foot-tall, nude sales clerks drinking wine, and reading poetry.

The taking of breath didn’t last long as Karen waited for her train to arrive. The novelty of it didn’t have any staying power, and before twenty minutes had passed it was all background. When everything is beautiful nothing is. The only interesting elf she’d met was the only one who was too ugly to be up on the wall, though a depiction of him screaming a monster to death might liven up the place. Even the handful of beauty elves that had begun to congregate were only as interesting as the people watching aspect allowed. One woman had a hat shaped like a yellow bird. That was something. Karen, either in spite of or because of, being the least attractive person in the room garnered the most attention by far. No bird hat required.

The train arrived at just a bit after the dawn was fully illuminating one side of the station, making the colors of the figures show their full vibrance. The train itself wasn’t particularly large, looking like a stretched out advil liqui-gel in predictable colors with doors set into the side. If she swallowed it, would it cure the headache all this blue was giving her?

Short lines formed, and for the first time Karen noted the conspicuous absence of both picts and mrax. Since the moment she’d entered the town actually. In the elf motherland proper, the national socialelf party could be as nasty as they wanna be.

The doors snapped smoothly open and shut for each boarder, each one triggering a tron-like ring of color around the door before passing through. The process was efficient, and the lines cleared quickly.

“Press your token to the pad.” A voice said from somewhere she couldn’t see. She hadn’t heard anything when the people before passed through or where people were right now entering to either side, but she’d have to chalk it up as the second most surprising sound related incident that week.

The referenced pad looked almost like a fingerprint reader, but apparently worked more like an rfid scanner. The moment her sigil from the coalition came close, the border of the door changed to black, and the boarder through the door changed to Karen.

The inside was as depressingly well appointed as should be expected, looking like art nouveau had eaten a bowl of blueberries and vomited inside the car. The ubiquitous color scheme was only bucked on the floor where stripes of different colors led to and terminated at different seats, including a black stripe that started at her feet and led left down the aisle.

Her seat, like all the seats she could see, was a bench of overstuffed blue leather trimmed with clean, white accents. Thankfully, it was also empty giving her an excellent view through the floor to ceiling window that had not been visible from the outside.

Passengers were all seated in a swift and orderly manner, and the train was much more apt to leave quickly than it had been to arrive quickly. Time keeping was not a priority here, and the schedule description of ‘after dawn’ was either a bad translation or had almost an entire day worth of wiggle room.

“Stay in your seat until we have reached speed.” The same disembodied speaker from the door had followed her to her seat, and the words had barely been spoken by the time the pill shaped car was moving back through the hole in the station’s glass from where it had entered.

The floating pill was beginning to do some much more aggressive floating, lifting from the ground at an accelerating rate. The rapidly increasing height gave a surreal, theme park feeling of being pressed down into your seat, and by the time it had reached the level of the clifftop she’d descended the night before, the feeling shifted to pressing her back in the seat.

Fuck me but this feels like a deathtrap.

Her companions in mass transit did not share her concern, even as the single, long car began to shake. ‘Is it going to be like this the whole way?’ The words didn’t quite make it out of her mouth before the train reached a sudden perfect stillness.

Great. More blue.

The view outside had been dyed blue by the walls of the translucent tube the train had flown into. For Karen, the blue view was issue number two as a sharp jump in speed was now giving that full thrill ride feel. The landscape below was starting to blur too much to make out details, and the train was giving no indication of letting up.

Karen loosed a sigh, half listening to the chatter as she watched the smurfscape blur by.

---

It’s identical.

Her stretched out pill had just pulled into the bottle in Prince Eugene. The station, and the city at large, was essentially the big kid version of the smaller town of Morez. Disappointment did come in pill form, and it had just delivered her to the provincial capital. The moment she’d spotted the oversized walls with their unoriginal color scheme she knew what she was in for.

She grunted a laugh, stretching a moment before exiting into the station. It couldn’t have been more than an hour, but the comfortable seating had left her feeling like she’d taken an afternoon nap.

The station, while nearly identical in appearance to the one in the smaller town, was scaled up massively compared to it. With its multiple platforms and levels, it almost made her feel like she was in a proper skyscraper when she entered a lift. Like nearly everything else in this world it required a Randian payment to work. It was only a fraction of what would fill a single stone, but it earned her some strange looks when the glowy doodads on the device turned black.

Stepping out onto the street, it really was Morez on a grander scale. Greenspaces, or in this case bluespaces, were featured everywhere she looked. Bridges crossed canals and elevated trains that looked like stubby versions of the intercity trains raced by in elevated tubes.

Not knowing where to go, Karen had to retreat back inside to question a clerk, finding that the coalition had several locations throughout the city. The largest of which was located nearby, describing the area they were in as ‘the section born at the city’s inception.’ Karen had no desire to see what that looked like when written, but was certain it was appropriately fitting and smug.

The COPWAPTDT in Prince Eugene was suitably princely. Unlike the mountain shanty she’d become used to, the place was buzzing with activity. The pillared and domed monstrosity opted to follow the city theme, forgoing the white and unstained maple funhouse look of its sister location. That size combined with the ‘way too many hundred mile wide stairs leading to the door aesthetic’ made it stand out as a landmark.

Nothing stood out on the inside though. The high dome, open design, glass-wall look was neat the first few times, yet it didn’t have the staying power that having at least two dissimilar buildings did. At least the copy pasted layout let her find a clerk easily.

He was an unusually helpful clerk at that; the coalition was clearing saving their best for the main branch. Larger branches apparently had tradesmen who offered discounts to members in good standing, which she somehow was. Since money was almost the only thing she was carrying, she had an urge to turn that into stuff.

Additionally, since stacking so many people in a city thinned the ambient source to a point that monster nests couldn’t spawn in for hundreds of thousands of imperial strides, there were no nearby jobs. One of the services they did offer was location counseling. In an attempt to get bounties cleared in locations that are for one reason or another unpopular, or have particular urgent need, large bonuses were offered. If she had been able to sign up beforehand, the jobs she had completed at gate seventeen would have netted her thousands of extra stones.

Armed with this knowledge Karen was ready to make moves. First were the money moves. A new ring boasting over fifteen hundred imperial mouthfuls of space. She could finally own things bigger than a loaf of bread, and not have to feel overly sentimental for keeping her old shoes. Those shoes had even made an appearance as she paid, having to pull them out to empty them of the source stones she’d filled them with. This, according to the spirit, was a mental flaw. Considering ‘shoes stuffed with stones’ as a complete unit instead of a collection of individual parts would only hold her back. With a properly disciplined outlook she should be able to pull the shoestrings out by themselves, and replace them still laced.

This new ring space felt large, but she had originally hoped for more. It was simply all she could afford after her first purchase: leather boots and soft socks. The boots were enchanted, capable of shrinking and expanding slightly at certain points to accommodate the wearer and allow them to be doffed and donned. She’d tried them on despite their price tag, because who the fuck isn’t going to try on the first pair of magical footwear they come across? The problem with magical footwear is that they feel like magical footwear, and Karen immediately spent more than half of everything she had to purchase them.

Between that and the ring, her shopping list went largely ignored. Extra clothes and alchemy supplies are useless if you don’t have a place to keep them, and so all else was thrust onto the metaphorical backburner. A backburner would be nice too; she could heat two things at once! Also, frontburners are smug attention whores.

The counselor tried very hard, for reasons she hoped were benign, to push her toward a few specific places. They didn’t suit her needs. Taking down increasingly difficult nests while working in a small group might be the primary route to advancement for most members, it simply wasn’t what she was looking for. Monster pits, and in quantity. Her only requirement. The feeling of being ready to tier up was still building, but she was certain it would peak soon. She wanted to be ready to take advantage.

When he finally relented, he made it clear there was only one place she’d be able to find it. She was on a train to the eastern frontier before her overpriced lunch had settled, after a quick stop at The Department Where Intergate Customs are Managed to file a complaint.