The next cart was the same thing, but with an engine on the back, like an outboard motor, with a few additional controls, including a strange, glowing switch that appeared to be magical. This was by far the most common type of cart. It was basically a flatbed we could use to ride on the rails. I examined its properties.
Interdiction Auxiliary Railway Repair Cart. Contraption.
Main Passenger-Line Gauged.
The simplest of the powered railway carts. Includes battery power or powered track selection option. Includes portal track selector. Interdiction teams are supposed to use these to carry additional personnel and supplies to repair areas as backup and support to the more robust Rapid Response Carts and their teams. They are not supposed to be used as a primary response vehicle.
As such, a Gnoll Transit Security Officer is not required to run this vehicle.
The engine had a connector that allowed it to run off the third rail power or it could run on battery power. I lifted the top of the battery compartment and pulled the brick-sized battery. It was a familiar dwarven battery, and it was at 2% power.
Since these lines off the main weren’t powered, it was probably just enough juice to get the cart through one of those portals.
I had traded the rest of my Louis L’Amour books along with a single jug of moonshine for the dwarven battery fabricator. The moleman shopkeeper had practically begged me for the trade, having finished the books I’d given him. I’d had a sneaking suspicion the fabricator’s odd placement at the first store we came across wasn’t a coincidence, and I was glad I had. The cookbook had a short but informative section on power supplies, and these batteries were common throughout the previous crawls. Each battery required four full mana potions to fully charge. Once charged, the batteries would supposedly last a very long time. The fabricator had come with fifty of them. Most were at 10-15%, though five had been fully charged and another five were at 50%. I’d also charged up another two just to see how it worked, giving me a total of twelve useable batteries. Plus it only took five minutes to charge one up, though our supply of mana potions, while healthy, was not endless.
For now, I pulled the empty battery from the cart into my inventory. If every one of these powered carts had one, that’d be another 40 plus added to my stash.
There were only ten of the last type of cart. They were pushed into the back, lined up on two different tracks, and it didn’t appear as if they’d ever been used, which was odd, especially considering the description of the auxiliary carts, which were heavily worn.
Each of these ten carts were about twice as long as the auxiliary ones. They had three sets of wheels instead of two. A line of seats filled the first half of the open-top cart, with cargo space in the back. There was a raised platform in the center with a small, enclosed driver cabin above the main deck, making the small train car look like a flybridge game boat. The raised cabin was accessed via a small ladder. Despite the height of the cabin, the train was still shorter than the typical, colored-line subway car.
The engine took up the entire back of the train, much larger than the engine on the auxiliary cart. The battery compartment took three batteries.
But the carts’ most distinct feature was the odd blade that ran in front of them, almost like a flat squeegee. It was a wide blade that appeared to be the exact width of a regular subway car. It ran across the front of the cart, close to the ground. The pole had two track-shaped indentations in the center, so when the cart ran along the tracks, it appeared the blade traveled right against the ground, molded to fit. The only give was the port side of the blade, which rose at two 90-degree-angles, allowing for the third rail to pass by underneath.
“Weird,” I said, examining the train. How did the blade thing work? It seemed it would immediately snag on debris while the train zoomed down the track, breaking off, or worse, wrecking the whole damn thing. I read the description.
Interdiction Rapid-Response Railway Repair Cart. Contraption.
Main Passenger-Line Gauged.
The main workhorse vehicle of the Hobgoblin Interdiction Team. Includes battery power or powered track selection option. Includes portal track selector. Includes dual-destination, selectable debris scoop.
When it comes to cleaning up a crashed vehicle on the tracks, nothing works better, faster, and more efficiently than the Hobgoblin Interdiction Team.
In the rare case of an accident on the Iron Tangle, one of these vehicles is immediately dispatched to clear the line.
This cart will move up a line at up to five times the speed of the regular passenger cars. The debris scoop will safely transport any active and running trains and their passengers back to the railyard. Once the wreck is reached, the debris scoop is switched to abyss mode, clearing the line of the damage. In case of a broken rail, the debris scoop automatically detects and removes anomalies and track breaches, allowing for the hobgoblins to do their thing.
Unfortunately, the corporation running the Iron Tangle has little trust for the hobgoblins and requires security to escort these vehicles at all times. As such, this cart may only be started by a pair of gnolls.
“Whoa,” I said. “We need to figure this thing out. That weird blade thing is a mobile portal.”
I saw how the car worked. The blade had to be turned on the entire time. The contraption traveled through the tunnel on the rails, and the portal filled the entire tunnel ahead of the cart, tossing everything on the tracks—including other trains—to one of two places, either a trainyard or the abyss.
“It says only a gnoll can drive it,” Katia said. “Two gnolls. Do you think we can remove the portal part and just use that? I wonder if we can somehow detach it from the cart and bring it with us. The blades are wide, but they don’t look heavy.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” I said. I moved to examine the metal blade in front of the first cart. The other two cart types had bodies made of wood. This was made of metal. My portal skill didn’t work on it because it wasn’t turned on, though I suspected we were out of luck. I suspected the entire cart was part of the mechanism, not just the blades. “Shit, I don’t think that’ll work.” I started to ascend the ladder to the cockpit.
Donut jumped to my shoulder as Mongo sniffed about the train. The ladder was covered in dust. It had clearly never been used. “We need to get that Growler Gary out here. That’s probably what he’s for. To drive the train,” Donut said.
“It has to be,” I agreed as I opened the door to the driver’s cabin. “But we need two of them, and if he can’t leave the bar, then how would that work?”
I looked down at the controls, and then I understood.
“Oh,” I said. “Fuck.”
Bautista: Okay. So somebody found the Sinopia line. That’s about five levels deeper than where the most of us are, but there’s a group down there. For my group, there’s a gangway up one level to the Mindaro line. The gangway is still intact, but those Wall Monitors are congregating near there. We’ll have to fight our way up, but I think we can make it. That only leaves one more group heading toward the Grullo line. I think that’s everybody.
Carclass="underline" Good work. Let me get this first part done, and then we’ll start working on getting you guys through.
Bautista: Thank you, brother.
Carclass="underline" Don’t thank me yet. I have no idea if this crazy shit is going to work. And I still have something very unpleasant to do.