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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ConnorSB" data-source="post: 1474857" data-attributes="member: 14273">The Frightfalls Express stormed across the desert’s barren landscape like a great herd of duck-bills, and with a sound twice as loud as their deafening hoot-crys. The train was a large construction, like a great snake made of steel plates and iron spikes, hundreds of feet long. Its joints were lined with spikes, its windows were inset into its metal form. To a dinosaur of any intelligence, this steel monstrosity was in no way edible.Its passengers, however, were. Especially if they were standing on the roof of the train, as Mordos Vel’Halek was. He was a tall man, thick and muscular. His muscles rippled under his stylized, metal-plated vest, bulging from beneath it. Brown, oily hair shot out at all angles from his sun-marked face, a hard visage criss-crossed with scars. The hair continued down his bare chest, and was mimicked by the hairy, leathery animal skins Mordos wore for pants. A huge, bulbous morningstar was tucked into his belt. Its spiked metal head glistened in the sunlight like jagged tear.Mordos stood there, on the roof of the elemental-driven train, with his arms open, looking to the train’s destination. He felt the raw power of the wind as it buffeted his face, chest, and arms. To the tribal warrior, sitting within the automaton below him was a stifling experience, one he was uncomfortable with. Mordos was much more comfortable here, beneath the open sky, naked before the elements and devoid of the trappings of civilization.Civilization. He hated that word- he spat at it. And yet- the cities had so much more to offer him than the village he was born in. They were at once a swollen pestilence on the natural lands and a new, exciting environment, full of smells and sights and all manner of creatures, natural or not. Perhaps this was their charm- like the humans that populated them, the cities were not quite natural, but not devoid of nature. Perhaps Mordos could learn to call them home, if his companions could ever decide to settle down in one. Far be it from them to do something so simple as stay out of trouble with the authorities. Oh well.Mordos looked out ahead of him. The first few cars of the train stretched in front of him, and past them was the great engine. Inside, so his companion Birin had told him, fire elementals were magically chained to special mechanisms that transformed their fiery rage into locomotive power- the train’s movement. The noise of the engine came from that process. The loud bursts of sound were magical byproducts of the transformation of power, pent up and then released. As well, so Birin had told the warrior, the bursts frightened away wild dinosaurs, who would have a hard time attacking the metal train, but an easy time slowing it down when they stayed too long on the tracks and were run down.He surveyed the landscape around the train. Around and behind him, the desert expanse was flat and endless, save that the city of Arrat sparkled like a jewel on the horizon directly behind the train. Ahead were the Mountains of Fire, where the flames of the deep earth rose up and spewed into the sky. Although the sky around him now was clear, a black cloud always hung over the mountains ahead, and soot rained from the sky like a fine, choking mist. Or so Mordos was told. These mountains were not their destination, but to arrive at the fertile Plains of Rien, the train had to cross the Mountains.“Hey!” a voice called out behind the warrior.He turned to see Birin emerging from the train. The fat man had some trouble when his blue robes got caught on the ladder, but he managed to get onto the roof without falling.“Birin, my friend! How do you like the wind?” Mordos asked, extending a hand to his compatriate.“Its much cooler up here than inside the cabin, but it’s much harder to eat. Come on back down, our food is here.”“All right.”The train’s whistle blew once, then again a few seconds later. Birin looked ahead of the train to see a cloud of dust just starting to rise from the sands.“Look!” He pointed, and Mordos followed the line Birin’s finger made. He also saw the cloud, and saw below it the cause- dozens of figures mounted on 2 legged dinosaurs, riding parallel to the tracks. In perhaps a minute, the train would pull alongside the herd of men and beasts.“Go. Down. NOW.” Cried Mordos. He and his friend hussled to the ladder and down into the train. Without the wind buffeting their ears, they could hear the yells of the passengers.“Bandits! Oh gods, bandits!”</blockquote>

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