As the door of the train closed behind Cole, he turned his attention to examining the room. He’d already seen most of it, but there were a few things he’d missed. For one, there was a large metal door connecting the passenger car to the engine car. The door was sealed with a silver wheel, akin to the ones Cole had seen in pictures of submarines. Above the steel door was a small, cone-like object.

Chooo. The train’s horn rang out the same noise as before, indicating their departure. The train slowly began to move, and Cole had to adjust to the sudden change in motion. Having always been fond of trains, Cole relaxed as he assumed the wild start of his journey would end with a luxurious train ride.

Lucy walked to one of the chairs at the center of the car, taking a seat to Cole’s right. The furniture in the car was a nicely upholstered couch, with two matching chairs at either of its sides. Cole followed suit, sitting on the side of the couch that was closer to Lucy. The two sat in silence as the train picked up speed, leaving the sound of the train's wheels on the track to fill the void.

Cole still wasn’t positive that leaving Iggy behind was the right call. Lucy seemed confident in leaving him there, but that did little to sway his distaste for the situation. Instead of continuing to agonize over the topic, Cole tried to think of something else. In doing so, he broke the short silence.

“So,” Cole said, “did I impress?”

“You did well,” Lucy replied, taking a slouched seat in her chair.

Cole smiled, as he also thought he’d done pretty well. Not wanting to seem impatient, Cole refrained from asking any magic-related questions. They had both earned a bit of rest and relaxation, and he was intent on enjoying it. Cole sank into the comfy seat, closed his eyes, and listened to the faint sound of the train chugging along.

As if on cue, a loud bang could be heard from the back of the car. The car jerked forward, uncomfortably jostling Cole out of his comfortable position. His eyes flung open. Having managed to stay on his seat, Cole looked over to Lucy, who had also seemed to take an interest in the abrupt occurrence.

Not again. Cole thought to himself, thinking back to the sudden trial they faced while waiting for the train.

After swaying a few more times over the next dozen seconds, the train returned to its normal stability. Subsequently, a static sound emitted from the direction of the engine.

“Hello.” The cone speaker rang out, breaking the static into a clear voice, “Welcome aboard the one-four. I’ll be taking you lot to the rooms you’ll be staying in throughout your time in the first tier. We should arrive in roughly one hour. Please be respectful to your fellow passengers and enjoy the ride.”

Fellow passengers? Cole thought to himself. The voice faded into nothing as quickly as it’d arrived, leaving Cole and Lucy to decipher its meaning. The silence that followed was broken by the sound of sliding metal at the opposite end of the car. Cole turned his attention to where the noise was coming from, watching as the walls at the back of the car finished sliding open.

What Cole had thought was an ordinary wall was something more akin to what you’d see on a regular train: a short passageway that connected more cars. The walls of the car seemed to swallow the doors as they parted, leaving no sign of their existence.

Lucy leaned over the left arm of her chair, seemingly intrigued by the new development. Unable to see much into the other car himself, Cole got up from his seat on the couch. Walking past Lucy to the center of their car, Cole peered into the newly opened doorway.

Looking through the short hallway, being barely a foot long, Cole could see that multiple cars had been attached to his, all of which looked vastly different. The passengers in each car looked similarly confused, making Cole believe they were all in the same boat. While Cole couldn’t see well into the fourth, farthest car, he could tell that the second and third housed three people instead of two. The car closest to him was easy to make out, and it seemed to contain a luxury that he wasn’t expecting to see so soon: a bar.

I wonder what the drinking age is here. Cole wondered, examining the room. Two of the passengers were sitting at the bar, looking back in Cole’s direction. The third was standing at the far end of the room, peering into the third car. The two at the bar looked at each other before getting up from their seats. They then began to walk towards Cole and Lucy.

“Hey,” The boy on the right said, gesturing to the left, “I’m Niko, and this is Susie. Are you two as confused as we are about all this?”

“Yeah,” Cole said, hesitantly looking to Lucy, “we weren’t told anything about this, either.”

Lucy examined the two but was quickly disinterested. Not bothering to respond, she rested her head against the back of her chair and closed her eyes. Cole wasn’t completely surprised but had a bad feeling, considering the sudden trial they faced the last time she did so. Left to his own devices, Cole turned back to the two strangers.

“Nice to meet you… Niko and Susie. I’m Cole, and this is Lucy.”

“Nice to meet you, too, Cole,” Susie said in a quiet voice.

“Oh!” Niko said, pointing behind him, “the third of us is back there. We only met recently, but he’s Dwaine. Yo Dwaine, come say-”

Niko turned around to look for Dwaine but couldn’t seem to find him. He tried peering into the cars beyond, leaning from side to side.

“The guy that was with you earlier?” Cole asked.

“Yeah...” Niko said, turning back to Cole, “Wanna go meet up with the rest of the passengers?”

“Uh,” Cole said, turning to Lucy, “I think I’ll just hang out here for a while.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, we’ve had a bit of a long day.”

“Now that we can agree on.” Niko laughed.

Susie nodded her head a few times in agreement. Cole assumed they must have faced the same, weird trial he and Lucy had. Given the circumstances, one could have spent a lot more time on the floor than he and Lucy had.

Niko and Susie made their way through their car, quickly passing into the third. With nothing else to do, Cole brought his new bracelet up to his face. IQ had called it a system band, but Cole had zero clue as to what that meant.

He brought his hand over to it, rubbing around the band to see if there was some kind of hidden button. When his hand finally grazed the obsidian orb that it housed, a small blue box projected out of it. Spanning from above his knuckles to his upper forearm, the box read a time that counted down from “57:41,” in increments of seconds, with no other information displayed on it.

Woah, Cole thought, moving his head to look around the box. He didn’t at all get how it worked, but Cole couldn’t help but grin at the sight of magic. He tapped on the orb again, resulting in the disappearance of the blue box. Cole looked over to Lucy, checking to make sure she wasn’t watching him. After seeing her eyes were still closed, Cole began to vigorously tap away at the orb, continually opening and closing the box. He did this for roughly a minute.

Ahhh, Cole said, leaning back in his chair and resting his arms, that’s the stuff.

Wrapped up with his own self-satisfaction, Cole barely noticed the footsteps approaching from the second car. Niko and Susie had returned to his car, both with worried looks on their faces.

“Did you find Dwaine?” Cole asked. They didn’t see, right?

“No,” Niko replied. “He wasn’t in any of the other three cars either. When we asked the other six if they’d talked to him, they said they hadn’t even seen him.”

“Seriously?” Cole asked, now realizing the real reason they looked bothered.

“Yeah… I’m getting kind of worried here.”

I guess the R&R is out of the question now, Cole thought to himself. Sitting up in his seat, Cole examined the room. Nothing had been displaced within it, and he hadn’t seen any sign of Dwaine entering. For whatever reason, he’d gone missing, and it was somewhere within the other cars.

“Is he in the bathroom?” Cole asked. “Is there a bathroom?”

“There is,” Susie replied. “It’s in the fourth car, but someone else was in it.”

“Strange,” Cole said, unsure of what to think.

More footsteps could be heard approaching their direction. Five people appeared in their car: two female, three male. They all examined the room as they entered, sizing up both Cole and Lucy as they did.

“So… he’s not in here, either?” One of the older men asked.

“No.” Niko said, biting his thumbnail, “I hope he’s ok. Where’s the other girl from your group?”

“She’s still in the bathroom.” One of the girls responded.

“Well, if no one can find him,” the man said, “then it’s safe to assume this is no ordinary train. I believe, given the circumstance, this may be our first trial.”

“You think so?” Niko asked.

“It’s the only explanation I have.”

Niko looked up at the man, nodding his head. The rest of the group began to mumble amongst themselves, discussing what the trial might be. They’d been given a one-hour timeline. Would the trial be over after that timeframe? What would they be doing in this trial? There were many questions thrown around, none of which had a definitive answer.

Cole, however, was more focused on another question. The man had said this could be the first trial, confirming that they’d yet to face one. If this was the case, then they hadn’t had the same condition for entering the train. Why would Cole and Lucy be subjected to a trial that the others weren’t?

Niko had mentioned that he’d only met Dwaine recently. Did that mean they’d met in a similar fashion to how Cole had met Iggy? Cole wanted to ask and be helpful, but he couldn’t help but hesitate. There were four cars, with a total of nine people in theirs. Accounting for the missing Dwaine and the girl in the bathroom made the total count eleven. Assuming the groups were split evenly, that would make Cole and Lucy the only pair of two. Because of this, Cole decided to keep his ideas to himself, as to draw as little attention to him and Lucy. They’d had a rough start, and there was no reason to put themselves back in the limelight.

“This is getting weird.” One of the girls said, gesturing for the other to follow. “Let’s go back to our car.”

The two girls left, and no one tried to stop them. They’d all just met, and tensions were already high. Cole looked to the remaining three newcomers. The man who’d been speaking was by far the largest, being almost a head taller than the other two.

“Alright,” The man said, looking towards Cole, “I don’t believe we’ve met before. I’m Tobias, and this is my partner, Zaviar.”

Tobias nodded his head towards his right, at the man slightly behind him. While Tobias was a large, middle-aged man, Zaviar didn’t look that much older than Cole. Even as Cole tried to look over Zaviar, he kept coming back to Tobias. The man was gigantic, with a massive, muscular frame. Out of everyone there, he was the one Cole wanted to upset the least.

“The fellow to my left is Lin.” Tobias continued. “We’ve only met recently but have gotten along well so far. I hope that we can do the same.”

Tobias walked forward, extending his arm towards Cole. As Tobias towered over him, Cole suddenly felt weird for having remained seated for so long. Getting up from his chair, Cole reached out his right arm.

“Nice to meet you Tobias, my name’s Cole. This is my partner, Lucy.”

Cole nodded his head towards Lucy as he shook Tobias’ hand. To his surprise, Tobias’ handshake was rather gentle.

“Good to meet you, too, Cole,” Tobias replied. “Are you two not adventurers? I see you both of you aren’t wearing tags.”

“Not me,” Cole said, “but I’m pretty sure Lucy is.”

“I see.”

Cole looked around Tobias’ neck, noting the golden tag dangling from it. He didn’t know what the various colors meant, but he distinctly remembered Felix calling Lucy a platinum adventurer.

“That’s quite brave of you, kid,” Tobias said.

“Brave?” Cole asked.

“To enter The Tower before becoming an adventurer,” Tobias explained. “That takes some serious guts.”

“Oh,” Cole replied, “thanks.”

“What kind of magic do you use?” Tobias asked, raising an eyebrow. “It must be something special to give you such confidence.”

“Uh,” Cole said, taking a moment to think. “Nothing special. Just your ordinary magic.”

“Ha,” Tobias laughed, “good answer, kid. I’d even believe you if you didn't have such an impressive-”

Tobias stopped talking, turning his head slightly. He hadn’t been interrupted, and a few moments passed as Cole became more confused. Had he said something wrong? Tobias couldn’t have caught on to him being a demon, could he?

“Do you hear that?” Tobias asked, looking to Zaviar.

“Hear what?” Zaviar asked.

A moment passed. As silence filled the air, a faint knocking noise could be heard. It slowly got louder, turning into a distant banging sound. From Cole’s perspective, he couldn’t tell where it was coming from, nor what was causing it. How did Tobias hear that? Cole asked himself. He must have pretty keen hearing.

“Let’s go check on the three from the fourth car,” Tobias said, signaling for Zaviar to follow.

The two began swiftly walking out of the car. Lin lagged slightly behind, seemingly unsure of what to do. Cole was curious as to what was going on, and he turned to Lucy to ask what she thought. As if reading his mind, and with her eyes still closed, Lucy smiled as she waved her hand in a shoo-ing motion.

Good enough for me. Cole thought, walking briskly to catch up with Tobias. To him, if Lucy said it was alright, he felt pretty safe. Tobias gave off the appearance of a reliable person, so Cole was happy to follow what he was up to.

Walking through the second car, Cole looked into the third. Unlike the previous two cars, it had a large, ovular table at its center. Combined with the chairs surrounding it, the table took up a majority of the car. The only other feature of note was the small lanterns hung around the room, giving off a flickering, secondary source of light. Tobias, Zaviar, and Lin had already moved to the fourth room, and Cole made his way around the table to follow.

Entering the fourth, final car, Cole could see all five people. One of the two girls who had left previously looked rather annoyed, standing beside a closed door. Cole turned around, noticing that Niko and Susie had quietly followed him.

“I said,” The girl by the door said, obviously annoyed, “Sadie won’t get out of the bathroom.”

“She’s not answering, either.” The other girl said. “I hope she’s alright in there.”

“If she’s not answering,” Tobias said calmly, “then why not give me a chance to talk to her.”

“Suit yourself.” The first girl said, moving away from the door.

“Who’re these three?” The second girl asked.

“They’re the other passengers… minus one,” Tobias replied, turning towards them. “The one in front is Cole, and the two behind him are Niko and Susie.”

“Nice to meet you,” The second girl said, waving towards them, “I’m Monica. This is my friend Wendy.”

“Monica,” Wendy snapped, “What’d I tell you about telling people our names? They’re not our friends. They’re the competition!”

“But they look like nice people.” Monica protested.

“The nice ones are the ones you have to worry about the most,” Wendy replied.

While Monica and Wendy bickered back and forth, Tobias approached the door to the bathroom. Knocking on it firmly, he waited for someone to reply. After a few moments of silence, he leaned his head to one side and then the other. In one swift motion, Tobias kicked down the door to the bathroom, causing a lot of noise in the process.

“What the hell was that for?” Wendy said, turning toward the noise. “How am I supposed to use the bathroom now?”

Ignoring Wendy, Tobias took a step into the bathroom.

“Hey!” Wendy shouted. “Sadie is... “

Wendy trailed off. Tobias had turned his body to reveal the interior of the bathroom, and Wendy was visibly confused. Cole couldn’t see inside the bathroom from where he was, but, given Niko’s situation, he had a firm guess.

“That confirms it,” Tobias said morbidly. “The first trial has begun… and we’ve already lost two people.”