Urdu notices something out the window, and presses his nose closer to the window...

"What do you see out there Urdu?" asks Marae.

"I don't know. It seems to be getting lighter, but... but the glow is orange. What time is it?" Urdu asks the conductor.

"Well... I don't rightly know. This hat has been stuck on my head for at least a day, or at least it seems like it's been a day. Here son, take a look at my watch for yourself."

The conductor pulls out his railroad watch, flips it open, and holds it out for Urdu to see, but CK is closer and takes a look. "It says 8:00 O'Clock, but that might be day or night. Hard to tell in this tunnel."

"The glow is getting brighter. Really bright now. Hey! It's a fire!" exclaims Urdu.

"A fire?!" the conductor says "The train is on fire?!?!

The orange glow flashes by in the dark and then is gone, strange shapes huddled around the fire on the platform in the dark.

"No no. Not the train." Urdu assures the conductor "A fire on the platform at the side of the track. I think I saw people.... Do people stay in the tunnel?" Urdu asks the conductor.

Obviously relieved, the conductor answers "Well, they're not supposed to. Those are the tunnel people. They take shelter in the tunnel when things are bad."

"When things are bad?" asks Urdu "What do you mean?"

"We don't really know what has happened. Recently we've had a number of refugees come into town, talking of a catastrophe. Their town suffered a terrible fate. I couldn't make out just what they were talking about. Didn't make much sense to me."

Urdu and the other just looked at each other, wondering if they were the ones that had caused the calamity.

Urdu looks back out the window... "Hey! It's getting lighter again! And this time it's not orange!"

"That! Would be the end of the tunnel!"

Just then the conductor' hat pops off, and the conductor blinks in the unaccustomed light of the car interior and looks around at his passengers.

"My... You're an odd bunch..."

"Aha!" CK exclaimed as he looked at the hat he managed to get off in one piece.
The MNs pouted, since they had tried long and hard to get the hat off but they had little success.
"We loosened it up for him," moaned Cat.
CK dug into his pockets, "Now, where is my sewing kit... I know I have one in here..."
And a huge pile began, of random objects like rubber duckies, raincoats, running shoes, honey jars, bananas, shells, and little robots that make quite interesting noises. The forumites eyes only grew wider as they watched the pile go higher and higher.
"How does he manage to fit all of that into a pocket?" asked Sora.
"Suggestion: don't ask," Speedy replied.
"AHA! Here it is!" chimed CK again, as he pulled out a box no bigger than the palm of his hand. "I should have scissors in here, but I don't know about an elastic or stretch band..."
1000 posts approached the pile and began digging. "I think I saw one in here..." he managed to say, but soon his voice was muffled due to him being head deep in the pile.
"I wanna join!" said Unlucky 13, and he began digging too.
"Me too!" said Cat.
CK sat on a train seat and began to search through his sewing box.
Meanwhile, the conductor looked outside.
"Ah, welcome to the RIVER stop. All off for the River Station... the doors will open on the right hand side of the train... River Station!" he cried on cue.
"How much longer until Town?" asked Marae.
"Town is in another three stops, after FOREST and HILL," the conductor replied.
"What about GORGE?" asked Urdu.
"That is where the tunnel people were... due to that, we did not stop," said the conductor.
"Why not?" asked Sora.
"We don't stop for fire," the conductor replied. "Is my hat ready yet?"

"Just waiting on that elastic band...and now I feel like singing..."

People quickly rummaged through their pockets for ear-plugs but to no avail.

"We didn't start the fire, it was always burning since the world's been turning..."

"Found it!" came a muffled call from within the pile of random junk.

"Good"

"Just one problem...I can't remember which way is up."

One of the mogs inside the mountainous mess sighed, "Just pick something up and drop it. The way it falls is down, and the other way is up."

The original voice argued, "But how can I pick something 'up' if I don't know which way 'up' is?" The other voice sighed again.

"Oh forget it," a third angrier voice joined in, "I'll show you which way is up, you obnoxious little..." The no doubt enlightening remainder of this sentence was muffled by the sound of a struggle from inside the oversized mound. The outside of the gigantic heap heaved in random ways, and the ruckus grew louder and louder until a screaming mog was ejected was from the top of CK's pile of junk ever useful accessories. As the ejected mog slammed into the roof of the train, the last voiced yelled, "There! That way is 'UP'!"

The original mog, who was apparently Cat, agreed despite his eyes spinning , "Yeaah... dat wood mate cents woodant id?" He plopped face down on top of the pile, the elastic band hanging from his limp hand.

"Finally," CK muttered as he took it. He sat down next to the conductor and set to work. The rest of the train car breathed a sigh of relief that his singing had come to an end.

The train continued to move on. It had returned to the tunnel format from the brief period of light that had blinded some of the forumites (you see, the tracks had led them to a bridge that crossed the river, and since this was in daylight/out of ground, that is why people got blinded) (unfortunately, there was no warning and most people who used the train frequently knew when to wear their sunglasses).

CK had claimed a seat, working feverishly to sew the cap. Urdu, Toz, and Sora were trying to get information from the conductor on the tunnel people and why there was a bit of a stigma against them... but the conductor wasn't really talking.
During this time, Speedy was trying to convince Marae to figure out what she would say at the town council meeting, to save the bar. But they were at a thinking block.

The train slowed down again. The MNs were curious.
"What stop is this?" asked 1000 Posts.
"Ah! Forest Station! Upcoming stop is Forest Station! The doors will open on the right hand side of the train... Forest Station!" shouted the conductor again, but Cat happened to be the entity whose ear was almost shouted off.
"Ow! Why must I be the one who always gets hurt..." he moaned.
The train stopped and the doors opened. The conductor looked outside the doors, looked left and right.
Suddenly, there was a shout. The conductor looked left, and his face paled.
"Shut the doors! No one is coming on!" he stated a little too quickly.
"Hey, there are some people running towards the train!" Unlucky 13 commented as he point at some people with rather pale skin and hair running towards the train. They were shouting.
"CLose the doors!" the conductor shouted, and this time he came into the train, looking frantically to find something to alert the train driver.
The remaining forumites looked. "Hey! Are those the tunnel people?" asked Urdu.
"Let them on! They want to ride!" said Marae.
"Tunnel people are not allowed on the train, the doors must close," the conductor said quickly again.
"Leave them open!" shouted the MNs. One of them went over to block the conductor from doing anything.
Toz and Sora ran to the doors and stood in them to prevent them from closing. "Get on the train!" shouted Toz.
This provided enough aid so that four tunnel people ran onto the train. They were huffing and puffing from the sprint.
Once they were on the train, the doors closed.

Sora smiled at the people as they got on. "Hello there," he said.
The man nodded, panting a bit. "Thanks," he said. "Usually, we don't get to ride."
Sora nodded. "Why's that, anyway?" he asked, shooting a look at the conductor.
"They're tunnel people," he said, as if that explained everything. "Tunnel people aren't allowed to ride."
Sora sighed, and turned back to them. "So, what are your names?" he asked. "I'm Sora."
"I'm Dorian," said the man. "And these are Doris, Eliza, and Kari. Nice to meet you, Sora."
Sora nodded. "And the same to you, Dorian-san." He turned to the conductor. "Now... assume, for the moment, that what is obvious to you is completely impenetrable to us. Explain to me why you don't let tunnel people on the train." He fingered the cloth bundle he'd brought with him. "Please," he added, in a soft voice.

Dorian looked confused. "My name is Dorian,"
"I know," replied Sora.
"So why did you call me Dorian-san?"
"Oh, forgive me, but that is something we do in my culture when we're addressing people," Sora explained.
"You haven't done that to anyone else in the group yet," Toz quipped.
Sora "ANYWAYS, care to tell us a story, conductor?"
The conductor looked very angry. "If you weren't fixing my hat, I would have thrown this crazy lot off the train for letting these people on! And without paying as well!"
"Psst... CK, take your time in fixing the hat..." Speedy whispered to CK.
"He won't tell the story. Not many Surface-dwellers do," said the one named Eliza, "since they do not think they did anything wrong by dumping their trash into our tunnels,"
"We did NOT trash your tunnels! How do you think one could come up with that much paper!" the conductor shouted.
"Paper?" Marae and Urdu chimed.
"Yes, they filled our tunnels with small pieces of colorful paper. We're planning to go to the town meeting to protest this, since the proposed plan is to remove all of the paper that somehow covered a square mile area into the tunnels!" added Kari.
"According to the surveyors, those tunnels were abandoned!" the conductor stated, "at least that is what it says in the newspaper,"
"Those tunnels were blocked off by the paper, so we had no means for us to get to the surface to continue our former peaceful trade relations," Doris explained calmly.
"And yet when we protested removing the paper, they laughed at us!" Kari said again.
The forumites grew a little pale as they hushed up and continued to let the argument ensue as the train rumbled on towards Town.

As the train proceeded on it's way towards town, after a while the train seemed to slow imperceptably, not noticable except for the slight change in the rythym of the clicking of the bogies on the track joints.

"Are we approaching the Hill station? asks Urdu of the conductor.

The conductor glances at his pocket watch. "It'll be a while yet. We're just at the beginning of the long grade to the top of the hill. It's a beautiful view from up there. You can see the whole valley. Well... It used to be a nice view... until two weeks ago... "

Eliza and Doris looked at each other... "Yes. Exactly! Two weeks ago!" they both exclaimed at once. "That's when the tunnels started filling with paper!"

"They did?" said the conductor. "Why, we... I mean... they didn't start removing the paper until last week. The paper must have run down the storm drains and into the local watershed."

"Did you say we?" said Eliza. "Who's we?"

"Oh... By we, I really meant that I think they hired a contractor to do the paper removal. They do that for that sort of thing. The big jobs anyway.... Small ones they do themselves.

Is my hat going to be done soon?" asks the conductor.

"I'm going to have to reinforce some of the other seams. What with the hat being over-stretched and a bit torn from all the MN's pulling at it, it going to be a while yet." says CK. "Lots of damage here."

The train continue to truck along, while the conductor and tunnel people continued to debate the cause of all of the paper-pieces-issue.
Marae looked over at Speedy and mouthed the words "help us"
Speedy shrugged.
Marae shrugged while opening her hands and widening her eyes, while slightly opening her mouth and raising eyebrows.
Speedy shrugged again.
Marae rolled her eyes. "You mod, do something!" she mouthed again.
Speedy sighed.
"Ok people, enough," she said monotonically.
But the bantering continued. In fact, the train had stopped and the doors did open, but the conductor did not realize this due to the argument that was going on.
"I guess this is Hill Station," Sora whispered to Toz.
Marae had enough.
"Can you all PLEASE just SHUT UP!" she shouted, managing to get a volume louder than the argument.
The people looked at her. "We won't shut up until this man over here can accept the fact that he and his people are responsible for the paper clogs in our tunnels!" stated Dorian.
"I will not! It is not MY fault!" cried the conductor, and they continued to argue.
"If you don't shut up, this stork will ban all of you!" Marae shouted again.
Everyone looked at Marae this time.
"Ban? Ha! What does that mean?" asked Eliza.
Speedy was surprised. "What?"
"Speedy has a powerful mod stick that can banish people to kingdom-come if they happen to get TOO annoying!" Marae stated.
"Umm... Marae..."
The tunnel people and the conductor began to laugh. "Ha! And we can transport to Mars," joked Kari.
Marae was saddened that no one took her serious. Even Speedy couldn't back her up.
And then she remembered something.
"Urdu, CK... don't give Speedy any more aspirin. Let her get her caffeine headaches..." she whispered.
"Why?" asked Urdu.
"Because isn't she going through caffeine withdrawal?" Marae said with a

"Oh!" CK got a grin.
"So, how long should I take on this thing? I really could have been done with it a while ago."

"Just long enough to get to town."

"Okay...Hey! Is anyone else hungry? I can make some noodles or something real fast."

Sora glanced at the forumites, and wandered over to Marae. "Marae-san," he said quietly. "This 'colorful paper' they're talking about... it wouldn't be that 'virulent confetti' the message mentioned, would it?"
Marae nodded glumly. Sora nodded. "I see..." he said. He walked over to the arguing parties and smiled. "Oi!" he said.
The arguing continued. Sora rolled his eyes, and pulled a small device from his pocked, clipping it to his ear. He fiddled with a small control, then grinned and spun the device around, as a blast of sound came from them. The forumites recognized it as the famous "THX noise". Sora nodded as the shell-shocked conductor and tunnel people turned to him. "As it happens," he said, "We're heading for that meeting too. The colored paper has made our bar and the surrounding area unlivable, so we need to go and convince them not to demolish it." He smiled. "So, perhaps we should work together. I'm not exactly sure where all this paper came from, but it's not any of the three groups' fault. Fighting won't help." He laughed, picking up a long, thin bundle wrapped in cloth he'd been carrying and tapping it. "Although, if you're determined to fight... I wouldn't mind joining in."

"I could do with a donut right about now! How about a chocolate cake donut with chocolate icing?" asks Urdu.

"Chocolate donut? Do I look like I've got a chocolate donut? Or for that matter, any kind of donut at all?" remarks CK.

"With lemon sprinkles?" Urdu says hopefully.

"OOOOO....!! With coffey?!" says Speedy. "Do you have any more of that coffee Urdu? That would go great with a donut!"

"Once again... I. Don't. Have. Any. Donuts." emphasizes CK. "Just noodles."

Urdu checks the thermos for coffee, and Speedy, seeing the frown on Urdu's face, asks in a caffeine deprived state, "What's wrong Urdu?"

"Err... umm... There's no more coffee..."

"Whadayameanthere'snomorecoffee?! How could there possibly be no more coffee?! Who drank all of the coffee?!" Speedy demanded, holding her head.

"I think you were the only one drinking coffee Speedy," says Urdu appologetically, now in full self-preservation mode. "I mean, look..." Urdu holds out the open end of the thermos to show Speedy, and then turns the thermos upside-down to emphasize the point, "See? No more coffee."

Speedy, still holding her head..., "My head is beginning to throb... How about an aspirin instead?"

CK looks in the aspirin bottle and becomes a little pale, "I'm sorry Speedy. We must have given the conductor the last of the aspirin for the hat headache."

"No aspirin either?! But he's not even wearing his hat!" moans Speedy.

"Well. We had to do something for the poor man when we couldn't get it off. No remove hat. No train ride. There wasn't really any other option," shrugged Cat.

"Let me check my pack Speedy. Maybe there's something there," says Urdu.

Urdu begins to dig in the pack, which goes on for a good five min...

"Aha!! Coffee!!" shouts Urdu.

"Oh... Thank goodness...," says Speedy.

"It's instant! And caffeine free! But we don't have any sugar or cream." Urdu says, trying to put the best face on it.

"Instant?! AND caffeine free? AND no cream OR sugar?! Oh... what's the point?!" says Speedy, sinking further into withdrawls. "What's the point?..."

"Maybe the Hill Station has coffee? I'll go take a look..."

Urdu goes to the door of the train car and looks out, but sees no platform.

"The train seems to have stopped, but not at the station. I wonder what the hold-up is? Conductor? Does the train normally stop in between stations?" inquires Urdu.

"Not normally no. Maybe something has blocked the tracks. Could be most anything... rockfall... lost steam pressure... customs...

We may have to get out to see."

quote:

I'm not exactly sure where all this paper came from, but it's not any of the three groups' fault.

1000 Posts had just managed to extract himself from CK's pile of various belongings, but after hearing Sora's speech, he felt a sudden need to dive back in. Meanwhile, Cat's eyes had just stopped spinning enough for him to truly grasp his situation, and he called to the agitated stork, "Hey, Speedy, I've got some green tea. It may not pack the same punch as coffee, but it should help a little..."

Cat was promptly mugged by Speedy, ranting, "Caffeine, caffeine, any CAFFEINE!!!"

While that amount of craziness was going on, CK rummaged through the aforementioned pile and, rather than noodles, unearthed Unlucky 13 instead. "Finally!" he gasped, "I thought I was going to disappear in there."

"Did you find any noodles?" CK nonchalantly asked.

Cat "I need some hot water to give you this..."
"Hot water who has hot water someone must have hot water give me hot water need caffeine need caffeine!" Speedy cried as her feathers were getting ruffled.
The tunnel people slowly backed away. Kari looked outside of the train.
"Oh dear..." she commented.
"What?" asked everyone else (besides Speedy)
"The paper has gotten into the train tunnel,"
"WHAT!" went the conductor. "These train tracks have little contact to the outside!"
Kari and the conductor left the train, while Toz and Sora jumped out after them to see what is going on.
"Look, see that pipe? It looks like there was a leak and the paper that somehow made it into the pipe just made the hole even larger and then went kah-put," Kari observed as she pointed it out to the others.
"How could paper do that?" asked Sora.
"Wet paper... this stuff would be hard to move," Toz commented as he felt the paper.
"CAFFEINE!" came from the train.
"I'm glad to be away from that bird..." the conductor muttered.
At this point, 1000 posts jumped out of the car and ran to the others. "Speedy's going crazy in there..."
"Say, is this a hot steam pipe?" asked Sora.
"I think so," said the conductor.
"Then I think we found a solution to our problems... if we can get Speedy to somehow get rid of all of this paper, then she can get the hot water for the tea and calm down, giving the rest of us some peace," Sora said logically.
"How could she get rid of it?" asked Kari.
"Remember that banning thing Marae mentioned earlier?" Toz said. "We can tell her to ban this pile to let the train through, and then we are good to go!"
The small group looked at one another and agreed this made sense.
"Ok, let's save the rest of the people in the car from total insanity!" Sora said.

Toz, Sora, Kari, and the conductor ran back inside the train where they saw a rather... um... interesting sight.
Everyone was piled up onto three seats, cowarding away from a blue stork carrying some sort of stick.
"CAFFEINE!" cried Speedy.
"Get this bird away from us!" moaned Doris.
"Speedy! We can get you caffeine!" cried Toz.
"What?" chimed the bird.
"What?" cried everyone else.
"You're crazy!" shouted Eliza.
"Actually, that's considered the norm for us," said CK. "Oh look! I'm done with the hat!"
"Gimme my hat!" cried the conductor.
"NOT until I get my caffeine!" stated Speedy, this time pointing her modstick at the conductor. He gulped.
"Speedy, there is hot water outside... but we need to get the paper out of the way before we can get to it. You can use that water to get that tea working..." Sora began explaining, but he didn't get to finish. He was promptly shoved out of the way and a blue thing sped outside. A few moments later there was a 'poof!' sound, with a sigh coming a few minutes later.
"Ahhh... caffeine..."
Everyone tried to look outside of the train, but it was hard to do so due to the small dimensions of the door.
"The paper is gone!" cried 1000 posts.
"The train can keep on moving!" added Unlucky 13.
"And Speedy has her caffeine!" finished Cat.
"All aboard! The train will resume its journey in one minute!" cried the conductor. "And I want my hat back!"
"Is the next stop Town?" asked Marae.
"No, but we can make this express due to the delay..." the conductor said in a whiny tone, for he missed his hat and he wanted it back and wanted these people off the train ASAP.
"Good, do it," said CK, "and then you'll get your hat back,"
The conductor pouted and he stomped towards the front of the train. Speedy was sitting contently in a train seat, sipping her tea.
Two minutes later, the train was moving again.

meanwhile ... Zarnic returned to 'Cho's Age. Guess I'll have to wait until I can read, or hear, where this latest band of adventureers ends up ... then I might be able to find them. Well, back home for me!

The train sped through the tunnels. Luckily, no one wanted to get on or off at Hill Station, so there was no complaint there. However, there was more evidence in the train tunnels of paper leaking through and leaving trace amounts on the rail line. The volume was never large enough to stop the train, but the forumites looked out the window with worry.
"This isn't looking too good," said Sora as he looked out the window.
"Maybe we could use Speedy to ban the stuff elsewhere, like she did with the amount earlier?" suggested Toz in the form of a whisper.
"I don't think that is a good idea, since who knows where that stuff ends up," Urdu commented.
"We could just burn it..." Marae suggested.
The forumites around here and looked at her.
"What?" she asked innocently. "Just a little flame could do it and it could all go up in a poof of smoke!"
"Okay... Marae, I think you need to get off this train soon. You're beginning to sound as sane as CK," commented 1000 posts.
"What?" Marae asked.
"Was that supposed to be an insult?" asked CK.

Urdu looked over at Marae and commented "You know... that would work. Setting light to it that is. Except... for the whole town and the Age 233 Bar burning down in the process. We might want to avoid that if the whole point is to... umm... to... What are we here for again?"

"Stopping the tearing down of the town for re-development, and in the process, saving the bar," finishes Marae.

"Right. I knew we we here for something!" says Urdu, recollecting.

*Urdu's phone rings* "Yes?... Uh-huh... Did it really?... How interesting!........ Well... No-no.... Tell you what.... We can talk to them later..... Right.... Ok. Bye-bye."

CK pulled the last ammount of his odd possessions in his pocket.

"Should we look into a caffine patch for speedy or something? I don't think we'll be so lucky as to have ready access to hot water next time."

The others started looking at eachother in a mix of horror and question. Just the thought of a caffine-hooked mod with no caffine access at all would be catastrophic beyound the incident that had just been resolved.

"Are we there yet?" the calmer stork asked the conductor.