Jonathan was a bit apprehensive about entering Ekbis with most of his party shrouded in a layer of his element, but the security was minimal. He and Eliza received a nod from the guards standing on both sides of the city’s gate, though considering the sheer amount of traffic, it was possible that they hadn’t even noticed them entering. After all, Jonathan and Eliza were many times shorter than the Umber Trolls and were mostly hidden from view as soon as they entered the crowd.

  The city was built on a scale that made Jonathan feel lost and out of place. Even the doors on buildings were so large that they looked more like castle gates than entrances to shops and houses. While most of the buildings in this part of the city were very small, relative to the districts closer to the center, they were far larger than their counterparts back in Telvaria or the Infinite Hells. There were very few humanoid races that grew taller than ten to twelve feet, or a least, Jonathan hadn’t encountered any who bucked that trend. The Umber Trolls would be considered giants by most sapient races.

  Perhaps their evolution from a monstrous race into a civilized one was why they existed. The larger a living creature became the more likely it was for them to be a monster. It was a balancing act of sorts on account of the System and natural selection. The stat spreads of larger monsters skewed far more towards the physical side, neglecting the mental stats. There was clearly some sort of limiter imposed on the intelligence of certain monsters, no matter how high their level was.

  Jonathan received no small number of strange looks from the Umber Trolls, but none of them were hostile. They seemed to see him more as a curiosity than anything else, and not a threat.

  “This feels so weird,” Eliza whispered. “It’s like we’re adults trapped in the bodies of toddlers. I feel almost like an animal in a zoo.”

  “It’s better than them trying to kill us,” Jonathan said. He could have sworn he heard a muffled cough coming from where Arkanon was standing, but his Void cloak made it hard to tell.

  As the group headed deeper into the city, following the main street the whole way, the buildings slowly grew larger and more ornate. The shops turned into entire marketplaces ensconced within soaring towers that stretched up for hundreds if not thousands of feet. The houses were replaced with apartment complexes and mansions, all vying for space.

  The Umber Trolls who frequented the establishments on the side of the highway dressed differently from the others Jonathan had seen. While the wagoneers and guards had worn utilitarian leathers or chainmail armor, the Trolls here were clearly far wealthier. The noncombatants wore fancy suits and trousers made out of lizard hide. They twinkled slightly in the ambient glow of the realm. Meanwhile the combatants wore full suits of plate mail that were clearly enchanted. Some of the weapons they held gave even Jonathan pause. Titanic maces and hammers filled with such immense quantities of Fire elemental energy that they might as well have been a volcano waiting to erupt.

  Jonathan had drawn a few cursory glances in the wall district, but the further he walked, the more he drew the eyes of the passersby. Some of them didn’t seem pleased that he was there, but nobody acted on their disapproval until he was so far into the city that the wall was almost invisible.

  “Hey!” a towering Umber Troll barked. He leaned against a wall insouciantly, but upon calling out his challenge, straightened up, revealing him to be a good three or four feet taller than his compatriots. He wore glittering obsidian armor and carried an ax that seemed more suited for chopping down entire groves of trees than being used as a weapon.

  “Yes?” Jonathan replied, tensing slightly. “What do you want?”

  “Take off your helmet,” the Umber Troll spat. “Who are you? How did you enter our realm?”

  Jonathan bristled. “Watch your tone. Are you looking for a fight?”

  The Troll laughed. “Oh, it won’t be a fight. Merely pest control. I’m not sure why the guards let you pass, but none of them are going to come and save you. I’ll say it one more time. Take off your helmet.”

  Jonathan laughed, and flashed the aggressive Troll the middle finger. He wasn’t sure if it would mean anything to him, but given the roar of rage the Troll let out, it carried some sort of meaning.

  The ax came whistling down, a halo of flame surrounding it as it plummeted towards Jonathan. He used Wrath of the Void and Maw of the Void in quick succession. With a swift flick of the wrist, Jonathan tore the ax out of the Umber Troll’s grasp, a good chunk of its blade erased in the shape of a massive palm.

  The Troll stumbled, unbalanced by the loss of his weapon. Jonathan cocked back his fist and leaped from the ground, gathering momentum for an uppercut. When it struck it was with the force of a bomb, blasting the Umber Troll off his feet and far into the distance, soaring past the wall.

  Jonathan landed softly, discharging the latent Void energy from his fist in a spark of purple light.

  Eliza shook her head, chuckling slightly. “You really can’t hold back from showboating, can you? I swear, every fight goes this way…”

  “At least he’s still alive,” Jonathan replied. “That was me holding back.”

  The rest of the journey passed without any incident. It took a few more minutes to reach the entrance to the under-rail, a large, vaulted chamber where thousands of people streamed in and out. Stairs led down into the ground, but Jonathan’s elemental senses started to pick up a truly immense amount of Dark elemental energy gathered in the chamber beneath the ground. As he had suspected, the under-rail didn’t actually pass through physical space. It used elemental energy to create a shortcut, allowing it to bypass the intense heat of the Pyrochasms to reach the city of Valryis.

  “Alright,” Jonathan whispered. “I think the rest of you should fly over the crowds. It’s going to be impossible to sneak through there on foot without being noticed.”

  While he didn’t see or hear anything, his elemental senses picked up on the Void energy surrounding his allies rising up into the air and floating over the crowd. There were a few places where the powers of those ensconced within the cloaks fought against the Void energy to allow them to fly, but the overall shield held without issue.

  Jonathan and Eliza made their way through the crowd, sometimes having to push their way through groups of Umber Trolls whose height prevented them from noticing the far smaller humans walking by.

  At times, a few spikes of aura were necessary to clear away more belligerent trolls, but none of the locals tried to attack them. By the time they passed through the archway into the under-rail terminal, almost five minutes had passed. The only way that time could have been shaved down would have been if Jonathan had cleared the way a bit more forcefully. To avoid causing an incident, he had refrained.

  The interior of the terminal was dominated by a staircase descending into the depths. There were no partitions or ticket collectors. People seemed to be free to come and go without paying any sort of toll.

  “Well, this is it,” Jonathan said. “Nothing more to do than go down, I suppose.”

  The steps stretched down for what seemed like miles, but was really an illusion on account of the size difference between Jonathan and the Umber Trolls. The real distance was somewhat relative to how far a subway station would be beneath the surface on Earth, adjusted to fit the size of the Umber Trolls.

  Flashing lights sped by at the bottom of the stairs, and the edge of a metal platform could be seen heading further into the underground. Umber Trolls strode off beyond the edges of Jonathan’s vision, their footsteps echoing slightly.

  Jonathan and Eliza were forced to edge their way through the crowd, each of the steps almost four feet tall. They had to leap their way down, all the while making sure not to slam into the Umber Trolls.

  Jonathan could still feel the cloaks of Void energy surrounding his allies as they floated their way down over the heads of the Umber Trolls.

  His feet clicked against the metal platform as he reached the bottom of the stairs. For the first time, Jonathan was able to see the actual under-rail. Well, under-rails would have been more accurate. Dozens of tracks were lined up all the way to the far wall, nearly a mile away. Train cars made from a mixture of obsidian and dark metal sat on the tracks and at the end of the tracks, to Jonathan’s left, were circular portals made out of swirling black energy. Trains left every few seconds, speeding into the portals and vanishing from sight. Every time one passed through a portal, a bright flash of light broke through the darkness as the portals briefly came online.

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  Jonathan frowned at the portals, realizing that there was no space for anyone to sneak by. The trains filled the entirety of the portals, and the transportation only came online for the short window of time that the train passed through. There didn’t seem to be any way for someone to sneak through on the outside of the train.

  “How are we going to deal with this?” Eliza whispered. "They'll just have to sneak on, won’t they?”

  “It’s going to take a lot of dexterity on their part,” Jonathan replied. “I suppose they are going to have to float near the top of the carriage? It should work. If the Umber Trolls were a bit smaller, it wouldn’t.”

  Jonathan felt a tap on his shoulder from one of the invisible members of his party. He withdrew a small amount of Void energy, letting sound pass by.

  “Can you hold the shield for as long as we might need?” Edgar asked. “Or more importantly, can you hold it through those portals? I feel like they may interfere with your abilities.”

  “Shit,” Jonathan cursed. “You’re right. I need to test that before we do anything else.”

  “How are you going to test it?” Edgar asked.

  “You’ll see,” Jonathan said. “For now, do you mind if I reapply the Void cloak? Someone might notice.”

  “Alright. If you’re successful, just give us a thumbs up. We can take care of it from there.”

  Jonathan kept moving, not wanting to stand out in the crowd. He surreptitiously picked up a loose piece of paper that had dropped from someone’s pocket a few seconds before, fingers of Void energy reaching down to grab it. Jonathan crumpled the paper up and flicked it towards one of the portals as a train passed by, shielding it as it went. A surge of elemental energy propelled it across the room. He prepared to drop the shield if anything bad happened.The piece of paper passed through the portal without incident, however, sliding slightly along the top of the train before it went through.

  He flashed a quick thumbs up to the invisible watchers, making his way towards the nearest track. Eliza caught up, walking quickly to keep her place in the crowd of Umber Trolls. The closer the party got to the train, the thicker the crowd got until Edgar and the others were forced to levitate once more.

  Jonathan wasn’t exactly a fan of this means of subterfuge, but he had never been forced into a situation like this before. Both his morals and practicality prevented him from being able to simply steamroll his way past obstacles like he normally did. Having to ensure that his allies were able to grow stronger as well as him made his task even more difficult.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” an Umber Troll asked, pushing his way through the crowd. He was dressed in a guard’s uniform, an armband so long that it could have functioned as a scarf for Jonathan stretched around his bicep. On it was an insignia Jonathan had never seen before, a ridge of volcanos under which a train ran.

  Jonathan initially ignored the man, but it quickly became clear that he was the target.

  “Hey! Yes, you, the dwarf! What is your business here?”

  “The under-rail?” Jonathan replied. “I want to take it to Valryis.”

  The Umber Troll glowered at Jonathan. “I can see that you are trying to get on the under-rail. I want to know why you think you will be allowed on.”

  “Is this because I’m not an Umber Troll?” Jonathan asked. “Nobody batted an eyelid when I entered the city.”

  “Ekbis,” the attendant spat, “is not the same as Valryis. This city is a backwater compared to the capital. Nobody cares about security around here, but I won’t simply allow you onto the under-rail without questioning it.”

  A few of the Trolls walking by paused, looking over at the altercation. After a steely glare from the attendant, they kept walking, muttering to one another.

  “Alright? You’ve questioned it. What exactly do you want me to do? There aren’t any ticket booths or security other than you. Did you expect me to take off all of my armor when I entered? Share my stat sheet with you?”

  “I don’t like your tone,” the attendant sneered. “I cannot allow an unknown variable like yourself to travel to Valryis, now that you’ve proven to be aggressive.”

  “Well, from what I can see here, you don’t have any real power,” Jonathan countered. “Someone like you would jump at the opportunity to scrutinize everyone coming through here, if you actually had that ability. So try and stop me if you want to, but I’m going through.”

  Ignoring the size difference, Jonathan strode forwards, attempting to push the attendant out of the way. The Troll laughed, planting his feet. Then his face paled as Jonathan forced him out of the way as implacably as a natural disaster, sending him stumbling back. Jonathan didn’t look back.

  If the attendant had wanted to say anything, the pulse of wind from Eliza that knocked him down as he tried to stand back up silenced him completely.

  The whooshing of the trains grew louder the closer Jonathan got to the rails. He studied them more closely, trying to piece together how they worked. While the general appearance was similar to trains back on Earth, there were a few differences that jumped out at him. The engine car was a hollow receptacle made from glass or crystal that contained a small pool of lava. That lava churned and bubbled, presumably powering the train through its heat.

  The train came to a halt and the doors slid open smoothly. Umber Trolls stepped off in much the same way that commuters would disembark a regular train. The interior of the train had no seats, only poles that the passengers could hold onto.

  There was a bit of head room for the others to float in, but they would have to hold themselves almost horizontally in order to fully protect themselves from the Umber Trolls slowly milling about in the carriage.

  That train disgorged its passengers and filled up again within a few seconds. Jonathan found himself and Eliza standing at the edge of the track, in position to board the next train.

  “It’s time,” Jonathan whispered. “Head in before everyone else.”

  There was no audible reply but there was a slight shifting in the ambient elemental energy field as Jonathan’s invisible allies positioned themselves. The next train came into the station within a minute, opening its doors for the passengers to depart.

  Jonathan could only hope that his friends made it in safely as he shouldered his way through a forest of legs and waving arms. He quickly attached himself to one of the poles, holding on tightly. Eliza did the same right next to him.

  The crowd outside diminished somewhat as the train filled to capacity in a matter of moments. The doors slid shut as soon as the train was full and it took off.

  For a second, Jonathan could feel the natural motion of the train along the tracks, and then it passed through the portal. The view though the windows whited out for a moment and then resolved into a hazy fog of darkness. Jonathan could make out mountains in the distance, a flat, arid plain sweeping around beneath them. Creatures flew through the skies, but they were made out of the same material as the fog, and almost completely invisible. The rest of the rails were spread out towards the horizon, but they were much further apart than they had been in the station.

  “What is this place?” Jonathan muttered, standing up on his toes to properly see out of the window, which was crafted after Umber Troll sensibilities rather than human ones.

  “Never been through an elemental plane before?” A nearby Umber Troll asked. Unlike most of the other natives Jonathan had seen, this one was hunched over and clearly elderly. Her eyes still burned with the light of wisdom, though it was dimmed somewhat by the scraggly grey hair that framed her off-red colored skin.

  “Do you know where we are?” Jonathan asked, turning her direction.

  The older Troll nodded, smiling kindly. “The under-rail works by taking a shortcut through a lesser elemental plane of Darkness. A mile in here is hundreds or even thousands in the real world. It makes traveling far easier, especially across the Pyrochasms.”

  “Who built it?” Eliza asked, sidling her way over. “It seems like a massive project. I can see the other rails spread out in the distance. How do you even build in this place?”

  The Troll shrugged. “How would I know?” she said with a chuckle. “I was born long after its creation. Just because I look like an old hag doesn’t mean that I witnessed the distance pass in person.”

  Eliza sputtered slightly. “Uh, sorry. I didn’t mean to imply-”

  The Troll laughed. “Don’t worry about it. I see my age as a sign of strength. Most of the strapping young men and women you might see out and about in the world will die before long. I may not be able to lead a charge across a battlefield, but at least I’ll be there to mourn afterwards. Time is the greatest gift the universe can give you. I hope you take advantage of it more than I do.”

  Jonathan opened his mouth to speak, but a flash of light interrupted him as the under-rail passed through another portal. The train emerged on a massive metal disk seemingly suspended high in the sky. Beneath it were an endless network of vast chasms, each filled with bubbling lava. Heat hazes so strong that they exuded a near rainbow glow wafted up from the canyons, extending far into the sky.

  “This is my stop,” the old Troll said as she made her way towards the opening doors. “Good luck on your journey.”

  “Good luck to you!” Eliza called out, but she was already gone.

  A slight hiss sounded through the cabin as some sort of intercom system came online. “We will shortly depart for Valryis as soon as the engine is fully loaded.”

  “Huh,” Jonathan said. “I guess this is some sort of supply yard? The trains must come here to fuel up for the long trek to the capital.”

  “Why can’t they just fill up in Ekbis?” Eliza asked. “Why the stop here?”

  A rumbling noise from outside pointed the two warriors to the answer. The original engine was being lifted away by a large crane, and being replaced by one many times larger than the previous. It was almost fifty feet tall and barely fit on the track. Its sides jutted out over the rails, sloshing liquid energy whirling around within it. As it slotted into place, a second set of rails emerged from the metal platform and secondary wheels dropped down from the new car. This kept the rest of the train on the tracks while maintaining stability for the engine.

  “Oh,” Eliza exclaimed. “That’s why. It wouldn’t fit in the station.”

  The intercom hissed on again. “We will now be departing the station. Estimated time en route is one and a half hours.”

  Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “Just how far away is Valryis? This train is easily moving at thousands, if not tens of thousands of miles per hour. With the elemental space cutting the distance down, that means it's millions of miles to the capital.”

  “I think you answered your own question there,” Eliza said, smirking. “You do that a lot.”

  “Is it a problem?”

  Eliza shook her head. “No, it's just one of those little things that makes up your personality. I like you for who you are, not for fitting. some mold that society created.”

  Instead of answering, Jonathan leaned in for a kiss. Eliza returned it eagerly.