TehLulz was woken up by the train slowing down. As he sat up he groaned, his chest was still hurting where the ghoul had grazed him. He looked out the window, he only saw the wall of the tunnel.

He turned to the others and asked: "How long did I sleep?"

Shadow answered: "A couple of hours, Drandin is a long way from our base. We just left the gold plated rails, right now we are in the tunnel that leads to the Drandin station. We'll arrive in a couple of minutes."

Unchosen asked: "They have healing potions there, right?"

Shadow nodded.

A few moments later she said: "There is something important I need to tell you. Here in Drandin you can openly speak about our mission or Mencur-Besh affairs, it's one of the few places where you can. Everywhere else, just keep quiet about it."

TehLulz said: "Got it. What about people with an Eye-and-Claws mark, they are allies of the Mencur-Besh. Can we talk to them about those things when we meet them outside of Drandin?"

Shadow explained: "Not all marks are equal, there is a system. People who are more trusted get marks with higher ranks, the highest rank is for drandinians and a few other select people, like us. When you touch someone with a lower ranking mark you will feel where they are in the hierarchy and you will also know what you are allowed to talk about. Do not mention your rank to anyone below you. However since you do have the highest ranking mark you have some degree of freedom with this, just know that you are directly responsible for anything you do outside of the guidelines."

"That's good to keep in mind." Unchosen said.

TehLulz looked out of the window again, the tunnel had gotten brighter, he assumed that the light came from the station. The train slowed down further as it arrived. The Drandin station looked much like the one they had departed from in design but it was much bigger. The train approached the first of the four platforms, there were already a couple of humans and Mencur-Besh on the platform.

freeZe asked: "What are they doing here?"

Shadow answered: "Waiting for us, they knew we would arrive around this time. Looks like they already have the potions with them."

The humans and Mencur-Besh all wore clothes that seemed to be made from grey nether wool, the clothes had numerous pockets and loops. Some of the people were carrying tools, probably to maintain the train. A man was holding a tray with several bright red potions.

As they got out of the train a blue eyed Mencur-Besh greeted them. "It's good that you made it here. Fire already told us about your run-in with that ghoul."

Unchosen, TehLulz and freeZe gave Shadow some questioning looks.

"Later." She just said. She then turned to the Mencur-Besh and said: "It's good to see you too, Stream."

Fire and Ambigious climbed down from the locomotive and joined the group, Ambigious with a very content look on his face.

He said with audible pride: "I drove the train the entire way."

Fire added: "And he did quite a good job with the arrival."

The man with the potions approached them and gave a small flask to everyone and a bigger flask to Fire. freeZe declined since she wasn't wounded.

He said: "I assume that you haven't had one of these potions before, so just a warning, it's going to hurt when you drink them."

Ambigious asked: "Why?"

Unchosen answered instead of the man: "If you want healing potions that don't spoil within a few hours you have to use a different recipe. The side effect is that the potion will release all of the pain the wounds would have caused within a few seconds. There is another recipe that prevents this but that one needs a fresh human heart so it's out of the question most of the time."

TehLulz laughed. "Thanks for the information."

Before he drank his potion TehLulz sat down onto the polished rock floor and he was glad he did the moment the potion started its work. The pain was excoriating, it would have made him fall over had he not sat down. But before he had the chance to scream, it was already over.

He slowly got up and stretched. "Okay… that was something else."

Apart from the memory of the pain, TehLulz felt great, his ribs were exactly where they were supposed to be and any other minor injury he had before was now gone.

After everyone else had used their potion they followed the blue-eyed Mencur-Besh to the exit, the rest of their welcoming party went to work on the train. After walking down a corridor they arrived at an elevator, which was more or less a cage on chains.

Ambigious asked Stream: "No magical elevators?"

Stream explained: "No, here in Drandin we try to keep everything as free of magic as possible, magical things tend to fail in the depths."

They stepped into the spacious cage and Stream pulled a lever. The elevator started moving upwards and gradually accelerated.

TehLulz looked upwards and saw a small speck of light at the end of the shaft.

He asked: "How deep are we?"

This time Fire replied: "About four kilometers, the mountain Drandin is located in are quite high." He added: "This did cause some problems with building an elevator, we had to use very loosely woven firesteel so the chains don't collapse from their own weight. The first ones did."

Stream added: "A lot of what we do is built on trial and error, the Ascension Project is one of the best examples."

TehLulz said: "Shadow told us a bit about it. I know that a lot of people died for it but what happened to those who survived?"

Stream answered: "With some the ritual didn't have any effect, they just went back to what they did before, after some intensive care from our healers. Then there were some where unintended but still interesting effects occurred. We discovered that if the potion is made with the blood of a Wither Mencur-Besh you'll have permanent pulsating black runes all over your skin but you'll be completely immune to magic. Apart from that there wasn't much else that is worth recreating."

"How many of those magic immune people are out there?"

"Two, anonymized as subjects 89 and 93. The former is from when we discovered the effect, the latter was an unaffiliated person who acted as a control group of sorts."

Not much was said until the elevator reached the surface. They were inside of a building that housed the redstone machinery used to operate the elevator. As he exited the building the first thing TehLulz noticed was the fog, it was difficult to make out anything that was more than a couple of meters away. The second thing he noticed was the noise, a rhythmic stomping and hissing accompanied by the clinking of metal.

He asked: "What's that?"

Fire explained: "That's what poets call the song of Drandin. It comes from the large central steam engine that's driven by the heat of the ore smelters and from the nearby smithies."

Ambigious said: "That explains the fog."

Shadow added: "The fog is also what keeps Drandin hidden, that and the hostility of the surrounding wilderness, the steep mountainsides also help."

Stream said: "I've already assigned you a house, let me bring you there."

If Drandin was one thing, it was loud. The constant noise of the central engine combined with the sounds of metalworking created a strangely musical backdrop to the foggy town.

As they walked through the streets of Drandin TehLulz noticed that the houses were largely identical. Something about the building style reminded him of Fire's base, simple yet oddly ornate, he also noted that none of the doors had locks. The drandinians all wore the same grey nether wool clothing. Each house had a smithy facing the street next to it, a lot of them were being operated. Many different metal objects were being made, ranging from something as mundane as nails up to weaponry and armor.

Stream led them to one of the houses, opened the door and said: "This one is yours until you continue on your journey. Feel free to join me and some of the others in the meal hall later."

They went inside and as soon as the door closed there was silence. None of the noises from outside got in through the walls.

freeZe asked: "So… what now?"

Shadow said: "We get new clothes and then we'll go eat at the hall."

TehLulz was still overwhelmed by the sudden flood of new impressions and information and he imagined that his friends felt the same. At the same time his stomach rumbled and reminded him that it had been a long time since he had last eaten something.