"You load sixteen tons, and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store."
That was the song you sang on your way to the station and then probably to your steam engine that you nicknamed "Puff." It has been like this for about several years when you went to work for the train company two years ago when you were sixteen and had another choice other than coal mines or going hungry.
About this time you run into your partner Scorch, his red scaled body towering over yours a good head.
"You always sing that blasted song" Scorch said "why don't you sing something else?"
You look up at Scorch and said "it reminds me of my old job, and how this job is a whole lot better than it."
Scorch gave a sigh before entering the door of the station and grabbing his punch card. "Another morning, another load, and another day added to my life" Scorch mumbled as he stuck it into the machine. You following suit right after him.
That was when you feasted your eyes on something that you haven't seen before.
In the station was a giant black beast of a locomotive, coal black to be more exact. It was a 4-8-8-4 (four leading wheels, two sets of eight powered wheels, and a trailing set of four wheels) and probably something that you couldn't possibly fathom going against. On the coal car the words "Visons of Mahler." Your friend Scorch probably had the same opinion as his long tung hung out limply from his open jaw.
"I take it that you like our new employie'sssss locomotive" came a silky smooth voice of a female naga slithering up behind them.
"Mrs. Tipany!" Scorch jumped into attention.
Mrs. Tipany, your boss, pointed at a very tall human, about seven foot tall, wearing a black cloak with long white hair and a thin face that looked like it had endured many years of hard work and pain without getting a single wrinkle.
"That's our new employee, Mr. Viost Von Ripenstoosh," Tipany introduced "but he prefers to be called Vio though."
You didn't rea;ly like him at first, there was somthing not... right about him. Like a constant feeling of being watched and haunted.
"Make shure you get along" Tipany said "because he is very essential as our loads are getting bigger and heaver."
You had a hard time seeing yourself calmly having a conversation with the man, there wasn't anything wrong, but you couldnt get settled.
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