Songs: Elane - Samarkand; Jo Basile - Ochy Chornya

I looked out of the train window. We had been on this train for three days now and apparently we were about to arrive in a small village in the middle of this tundra. One of the pieces of the Vault Key was probably just outside the village, but according to Anouk 'just outside the village' could mean anything.

Our plan was to stay in the village for a while and get friendly with the people living there and to hopefully find out where that Vault Key piece was buried. I still wasn't quite sure what would expect us out here. I had heard that in the tundra parts there could be quite the ferocious wildlife. And there was some sort of conflict going on, but Anouk hadn't told me much over the ECHO.

During the three days we had been travelling I had seen icy deserts and tundra. Just today we had left the tundra behind (mostly) and had gotten to an area that seemed to be mostly forest and swampland.

At the moment Tina and I were the only people in the little train compartment. Mordecai and Brick had gone on a walk through the train to move around a little and Anouk was on her way to get some hot soup and tea. Tea was all I had been drinking since I arrived here. And a really strange drink made from fermented bread. It sounded weird and it tasted pretty weird, when I first tried it, but I soon developed quite a liking to it. It had really grown on me over time.

Tina was fast asleep on the top bunk and probably wouldn't wake up any time soon. Thankfully. She had been up all night running around excitedly because she got really bored all of a sudden and now she was too exhausted to move. At least she wasn't going on all our nerves anymore for a while.

I heard the doors to the compartment open and turned around to see Anouk walking in with a tray with two bowls of soup on it in one hand and a big flask of tea in the other hand. I had noticed another weird thing about Anouk these days - that girl was strong. Not strong like Brick, but strong when it came to practical tasks like carrying food and things like that. It was like she had been born and raised on a farm. I wondered if she maybe was raised on a farm, but then I knew that her parents were high up in the Vladof corporation, so she was probably well off. Maybe it had to do with her starting to work so early. I really wondered how her childhood was and how she was brought up.

"I brought you some soup, too, you'll have to try it. It's called Solyanka." she said as she put the tray down on the table.

"What's in it?" I asked. Anouk shrugged and startet retying the scarf around her head, so it would only show a few strands of her curly hair.

"I dunno." she answered.

"What do you mean, you don't know?" I replied with an amused smile. She laughed a little and shrugged again.

"I don't know what's in this one. It's not like there is much of a recipe to it. It is mostly just a soup of whatever leftovers there are. Just throw in whatever you need to get rid of. Mostly bits of meat and pickles, onion, leek, potato - stuff like that. It's always a surprise, but it's always good."

"Huh. Sounds interesting." I said and took a look at what was in the bowl. It looked like a reddish soup and I could see some pieces of meat swimming in it. There was a small dish with cream on the side and one with lemon slices. I gave Anouk a questioning look, since I had no idea what to do with that stuff.

"Oh, right. You can squeeze some lemon on top of it or you can put a spoonful of cream in the soup. Or both. It makes it taste ten times better. I personally prefer the cream, you should definitely try it!" Anouk said and put a big spoon of cream on top of her bowl of soup. She then proceeded to stir it into the soup.

I shrugged and took a spoonful of cream as well. No harm in adjusting to the local customs. I slowly stirred the soup and watched it turn into a creamy, lightly orange soup. I could hear Anouk starting to eat her Solyanka already and she seemed to really enjoy it. I decided I was ready to try a spoon myself.

The first thing I could taste was tomato, followed by a hint of sourness coming from the cream. There was some leek and some sort of meat on that spoon as well. It made for a really hearty mix and before I knew it I was eating away at it like there was no tomorrow. Anouk seemed happy I was having a good time.

"So... how long until we'll be in... wherever it was we needed to be?" I asked her between bites.

"Sindor. That's the name of the town. And it won't be too long, maybe around an hour or two. I've kinda lost track of time." Anouk replied.

"What's that place like?" I wanted to know.

"Oh, it's just a small town. The surrounding area is mostly forest. There is one big factory there, they work with wood. Most of the people in the town work with wood in some way. They are either in the factory or they're lumberjacks or they go and transport it to other places or they plant new trees to keep the forest growing. And if they don't work with wood, they either farm or work in some of the shops in town." she replied. I didn't get it. I didn't get what the deal was with this whole planet. Everyone seemed to be really peaceful and content with what they had. What was up with the people here?

"Anything we'd need to know? Like dangerous wildlife, any group of people we'd need to look out for?"

"Well... to be honest, out here in the woods people sometimes tend to disappear. Sometimes they are found later and you just know they were killed by a bear or some other animal. Some of them never turn up again. There are lots of myths and legends about it. And I do have a feeling you'll find your Vault key fragment with a big pile of human bones. But there is no need to worry for now. When it comes to the people, they are mostly simple and peaceful people." Anouk explained. I raised an eyebrow. That whole story did sound quite worrisome.

"How are there no other people after the Vault?" I asked. Anouk bit her lip and then moved closer towards me.

"You gotta keep quiet about this, alright? There are other people after the Vault." she answered.

"Okay and who would that be?"

"How much do you know about our history?" Anouk wanted to know. I gave her an amused look and just raised my arms. I knew pretty much nothing when it came to Aeres. All I knew was that Vladof was there and that Vladof made nice guns. I didn't need to know more until now.

"No clue." I said.

"Alright, this is basic Vladof history, the short version. Before Ivan Vladof came around and brought the revolution, there was one massive ruling class on this planet and they were just the worst kind of fascists. But Vladof fought them back with a massive army of volunteers and took over. However, those people are still around and are trying to get back in power. It's been quiet lately, but we know that they are looking for the Vault, so they can get back to ruling the planet." Anouk explained, giving me a questioning look, as if to see whether that was all clear to me.

"Okay, makes sense. So... we'd probably be better off not mentioning the Vault at all and keeping all this completely under wraps?" I asked her. She nodded.

"It would be much better. You won't get in trouble for hunting the Vault, a good few people have tried that that were not part of the ruling class. The problem is that people will get the wrong impression. And then this won't be fun anymore." she replied.

"So we just keep it on the down low?"

"Exactly. Don't mention it, unless it's absolutely necessary."

"Got it. So we've got wildlife and these other people trying to get back in power to watch out for?" I wanted to know.

"Yeah, exactly. Not so much in the city, the city should be fairly easy terrain, but out here or in the steppe there might be quite a few areas where you have to be careful. Of either wildlife or people trying to get to the Vault before us."

"Alright. I suppose we won't get in trouble if we go and kill those guys?" I asked. I mean, why would we get in trouble? We were basically killing state enemies, right?

"Yeah, just don't make a big deal of it. No one will question it. If you make a big deal of it, people will question it and you won't get in trouble, but it'll be way more hassle and you probably won't be hunting Vaults. At least not on Aeres." she answered. It seemed like she didn't really want to tell me what exactly would happen if we made a big deal of hunting the Vault, but I figured it was probably not going to be a nice experience. We hadn't really planned to tell a lot of people, anyway.

"Hey, hey, hey. Are we there yet?" Tina mumbled and looked down, her head hanging over the edge of the bunk bed.

"Since when have you been awake, Tina?" I asked. She just shrugged and stretched her arms out.

"I dunno. A while. How long until we're there?" she wanted to know again. I looked over at Anouk, because I was just as clueless as her. She had a look at her watch and then looked out of the window.

"Maybe an hour. At most. It's difficult to say with these trains, there could always be a disruption on the way or the tracks or too frozen over or something and we'll have to wait." she answered.

"Man, that whole trip reminds me of that one time we blew hijacked that train. That was fun, wasn't it?" Tina asked with a big grin on her face, as she made her way down to us, more falling than climbing down.

"You hijacked a train?" Anouk asked, looking both concerned and excited at the same time. I shrugged.

"Yeah, it kinda didn't go according to plan and almost got us killed for good, but we did that. Well, not us, but the other Vault Hunters. It's kind of a long story." I answered. Tina grabbed a cup of tea and sat down next to me. She took a big sip from her cup and then crossed her legs and looked at us while leaning back.

"Well, we have time, don't we? Let me tell the story, please, please, please, I really wanna tell that story!" she said to me. I laughed a little.

"Alright then. Go ahead and tell Anouk the story." I replied and leaned back, watching the trees pass by through the window.